light yeeldes manie good sentences, as Bloud is a begger, and so foorth: and if you intreate him faire in a frostie morning, he will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say handfulls of tragical speaches." There was then a "Hamlet" of some sort in exist. ence as early as 1589, and of such a sort as to have become a matter of popular or general remark. Yet it is far from probable that such a drama was the work of Shakespeare; it is too early. He may have begun to recast plays, but probably not to produce them unassisted. But it appears that the piece, whatever its quality, was played by the company of actors that Shakespeare had joined; as an entry in Henslowe's Diary (p. 35, Shakespeare Society edition) conveniently proves: In the name of God Amen, beginninge at Newington, my Lord Admeralle and my Lorde chamberlen men, as foloweth. 1594: 3 of June 1594, Rd at Heaster and asheweros 4 of June 1594, Rd at the Jewe of malta 5 of June 1594, Rd at andronicous 6 of June 1594, Rd at cutlacke 8 of June 1594, ne Rd at bellendon 9 of June 1594, Rd at hamlet viijs XS xijs xjs xvijs viijs Shakespeare's company, called at this time the Lord. Chamberlain's Players, were evidently playing along with the Lord Admiral's company at the Newington theatre. Henslowe's share of the receipts from Hamlet was as little as from the rendition of Esther and Ahasuerus, and less than from the Cutlack and the Bellendon, which were undoubtedly very poor affairs. We can hardly conceive then that the play is Shakespeare's. It would surely rank in popularity as at least the equal of Titus Andronicus, which we learn, by turning back the leaf in Henslowe, was a new play being marked ne, like Bellendon in the list aboveon January 23 of the year before, and was rendered again on the 28th, and yet again on February 6. It is not likely that this play is the Titus Andronicus, ascribed to Shakespeare, that we know. A further hint that the play in question is not the Hamlet of this volume is found in Lodge's pamphlet, Wits miserie, and the Worlds madnesse, discovering the Devils incarnat of this Age, which dates from 1596. One of these devils, the Hate-virtue, is described as "a foule lubber, and looks as pale as the visard of ye ghost, which cried so miserally at ye theator, like an oisterwife, Hamlet reuenge." As no such expression occurs in the present play, it would seem to have belonged to the Ghost's part in the former piece, and to have been made much of sensationally by the playgoers, since several allusions to it are met with in the literature of the time. The lines most nearly akin (I. v. 25, 91) in the present text"Revenge his most foul and unnatural murder," and Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me cannot, with their lighter elocution, be identified with such a⚫phrase. 66 The play that Shakespeare constructed out of this earlier drama, or perhaps wrote at first hand from the Hystorie, can hardly have taken shape before the spring or summer of 1602. In July of this year James Roberts secured an entry in the Stationers' Register for "A booke called the Revenge of HAMLETT Prince Denmarke as yt was latelie Acted by the lord Chamberleyne his servantes." It does not appear that any book thus styled was ever printed. It is believed that the work intended was issued the year following with this title, "THE Tragicall Historie of HAMLET Prince of Denmarke By William Shake speare. As it hath beene diuerse times acted by his Highnesse seruants in the Cittie of London: as also in the two Vniuersities of Cambridge and Oxford, and else-where." This is known as the First Quarto. The text thus published is identical with the eventual play in many passages, but in others seems wholly at war with Shakespeare's characteristic diction and manner. Opening at random we find, "Yea, murder in the highest degree, As in the least tis bad, But mine most foule, beastly and vnnaturall," answering (I. v. 27, 28) to these words of the Ghost to Hamlet: "Murder most foul, as in the best it is, But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.” Again, instead (V. i. 279–281 and 284-294) of "I lov'd Ophelia; forty thousand brothers Woo't weep? Woo't fight? Woo't fast? Woo't Woo't drink up eisel, eat a crocodile ? I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine ? To outface me with leaping in her grave? Be buried quick with her, and so will I, Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth, "I lou'de Ofelia as deare as twenty brothers could: Wilt fight, wilt fast, wilt pray, Wilt drinke up vessels, eate a crocadile? Ile doot: And where thou talk'st of burying thee a liue, Here let vs stand: and let them throw on vs, Whole hills of earth, till with the heighth thereof, There is little hint of Shakespeare's power and skill in evidence here. "Oosell," of the last line, which does not look like a printer's blunder, suggests the effort of an insufficient mind to report something that has been heard, but not understood. There are other passages much more distantly akin to the eventual readings, and sometimes hardly to be accepted as better than a travesty of their sense. Hence it has been supposed that the text in question was obtained surreptitiously, perhaps by copying and memorizing the parts as heard from the lips of the actors in the playhouse. The lines often seem made up from catch |