HAMLET. NASH, in an Epistle "To the Gentlemen Students of both Uniuersities," prefixed to Greene's Menaphon. Camillas alarum to slumbering Euphues, &c., 1589 [qy. if first printed in 1587?], writes thus: "Ile turne backe to my first text, of studies of delight; and talke a little in friendship with a few of our triuiall translators. It is a common practise now a daies amongst a sort of shifting companions, that runne through euery arte and thriue by none, to leaue the trade of Nouerint whereto they were borne, and busie themselues with the indeuors of art, that could scarcelie latinize their necke-verse if they should haue neede; yet English Seneca read by candle-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." Sig. **3, ed. 1589.-Henslowe mentions (and without the mark by which he generally distinguishes new plays) a "hamlet" as having been acted at the Newington Butts Theatre on June 9th, 1594. Diary, p. 35, ed. Shakespeare Soc.-Again, Lodge in his Wits Miserie, and the Worlds Madnesse, &c., 1596, thus describes a certain fiend: "he walks for the most part in black vnder colour of grauity, and looks as pale as the visard of ghost which cried so miserally [sic] at y theator like an oisterwife, Hamlet, reuenge." Sig. H 4.—But had Shakespeare written his Hamlet at the above dates? My own conviction is, that he had not, and that the piece alluded to by Nash and Lodge, and acted at Newington, was an earlier tragedy on the same subject, which no longer exists, and which most probably (like many other old dramas) never reached the press. Our author's tragedy, it seems evident, was first produced not long before July 26th, 1602; for on that day Roberts made an entry in the Stationers' Registers of "A booke, The Revenge of Hamlett prince of Denmarke, as yt was latelie acted by the Lord Chamberlayn his servantes." According to Mr. Collier, "The object of Roberts in making the entry was to secure it [Shakespeare's Hamlet] to himself, being, no doubt, aware that other printers and booksellers would endeavour to anticipate him. It seems probable that he was unable to obtain such a copy of 'Hamlet' as he would put his name to; but some inferior and nameless printer, who was not so scrupulous, having surreptitiously secured a manuscript of the play, however imperfect, which would answer the purpose, and gratify public curiosity, the edition bearing date in 1603 was published." Introd. to Hamlet. We have, however, no proof that Roberts was not "the nameless printer" of the quarto of 1603: on the contrary, there is reason to suspect that he was, since we find that he printed the quarto of 1604 for the same Nicholas Ling who was one of the publishers of the quarto of 1603. Be that as it may, it seems certain that in the quarto of 1603* (as In my former edition I expressed myself less fully on the subject of the quarto of 1603, and consequently have been misunderstood by Professor Gervinus, who writes as follows; "We possess a quarto-edition of 1603, which is regarded indeed by Collier, Dyce, and Mommsen, as a faulty and illegal print of the complete piece; but on the other hand, according to the indisputably more just opinion of Knight, Delius, and Staunton, it contains an earlier design of the poet's, though in a mutilated form," &c. Shakespeare Commentaries, vol. ii. p. 108, English trans. en is the case with respect to the earliest quartos of The Merry Wives of Windsor and Romeo and Juliet) we have Shakespeare's first conception of the play, though with a text mangled and corrupted throughout, and perhaps formed on the notes of some short-hand writer, who had imperfectly taken it down during representation. Not to dwell on other particulars, the names borne by Polonius and Reynaldo in the quarto of 1603, where they are called Corambis and Montano, are alone sufficient to show that the said quarto exhibits a form of the tragedy very different from that which it afterwards assumed in the quarto of 1604 and the folio of 1623. Mr. Collier (ubi supra) conjectures that Corambis and Montano "were names in the older play on the same story, or names which Shakespeare at first introduced, and subsequently thought fit to reject:" perhaps they were names which Shakespeare had originally retained from the earlier drama, and which, on revising and altering his tragedy, he changed to Polonius and Reynaldo. (Of the quarto of 1603 only two copies are known, one of them wanting the last leaf, and one without the title-page: but it is now procurable in more than one reprint.) The quarto of 1604 gives Hamlet “ larged to almost as much againe as it was, according to the true and perfect coppie," and has a great deal which is omitted in the folio of 1623, though the folio has some passages which are omitted in the quarto of 1604, and which have their parallelisms in the quarto of 1603.-Mr. Albert Cohn's curious volume, entitled Shakespeare in Germany in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, &c. contains (both in German and English), p. 237, the "Tragedy of Fratricide punished, or Prince Hamlet of Denmark, acted in Germany, about the year 1603, by English Players:" but which "has been preserved to us only by a late and modernised copy of a much older manuscript." In this piece Polonius is called Corambus, which, with the variation of a single letter, is his name in the quarto of 1603; and to that form of the play the German version approaches more nearly than to that of the later editions; but, as it gives certain passages which are parallel to those in the received text of Hamlet, and of which there is no trace in the quarto of 1603, the translator must have employed some other edition of the original besides that of 1603. To the "Tragedy of Fratricide" is prefixed a Prologue, spoken by Night, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megara, which composition is superior to the play itself. The latter, indeed, is miserably bald, and its occasional absurdity may be judged of by a stage-direction in the First Act," Ghost gives to Sentinel a box on the ear from behind, and makes him drop his musket."-A novel entitled The Hystorie of Hamblet, translated most vilely from one of the Histoires Tragiques of Belleforest (who founded his tale on a portion of the chronicle of Saxo Grammaticus), has several incidents in common with our author's play; but whether he derived those incidents from The Hystorie, or from the older drama on the same subject, we are left to guess. (In Mr. Collier's Shakespeare's Library, vol. i., is a reprint of the Hystorie of Hamblet from the only entire copy known, which is dated 1608: the first edition was no doubt published many years before.) in DRAMATIS PERSONE CLAUDIUS, king of Denmark. HAMLET, son to the former, and nephew to the present king. POLONIUS, lord chamberlain. HORATIO, friend to Hamlet. LAERTES, son to Polonius. GERTRUDE, queen of Demark, and mother to Hamlet. OPHELIA, daughter to Polonius. Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Attendants. Ghost of Hamlet's Father. SCENE-Elsinore; except in the fourth scene of the fifth act, where it is a plain in Denmark, HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. ACT I. SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle. Ber. Who's there? Fran. Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself. Fran. Bernardo? Ber. He. Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour. Ber. 'Tis now struck twelve; (1) get thee to bed, Francisco. Fran. For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart. Ber. Have you had quiet guard? Fran. Ber. Well, good night. Not a mouse stirring. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste. Fran. I think I hear them.-Stand, ho! Who is there? Enter HORATIO and MARCEllus. Hor. Friends to this ground. Mar. Fran. Give you good night. Mar. And liegemen to the Dane. O, farewell, honest soldier: A piece of him. Ber. Welcome, Horatio:-welcome, good Marcellus. Mar. Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy, And will not let belief take hold of him Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us : Therefore I have entreated him along With us to watch the minutes of this night; He may approve our eyes, and speak to it. And let us once again assail your ears, What we two nights have seen. Hor. Sit down awhile; Well, sit we down, And let us hear Bernardo speak of this. Ber. Last night of all, When yond same star that's westward from the pole Had made his course t' illume that part of heaven The bell then beating one, Mar. Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again! Enter Ghost. Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead. Mar. Question it, Horatio. Hor. What art thou, that usurp'st this time of night, Together with that fair and warlike form. In which the majesty of buried Denmark |