"Alas my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted;" Immediately after the scene of the original copy in which Polonius describes Hamlet's frenzy, Hamlet comes in and speaks the celebrated soliloquy. In the amended but she comes at once to proclaim Hamlet copy this passage, as well as the scene with mad: "O my dear father, such a change in nature, Is filch'd and stolen away-his wit's bereft him." Again, in the next scene, when the King communicates his wishes to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he does not speak of Hamlet as merely put "from the understanding of himself;" but in this first copy he says— "Our dear cousin Hamlet Hath lost the very heart of all his sense." In the description which Polonius, in the same scene, gives of Hamlet's madness for Ophelia's love, the symptoms are made much stronger in the original copy : "He straightway grew into a melancholy; From that unto a fast; then unto distraction; Then into a sadness; from that unto a madness; And so, by continuance and weakness of the brain, Into this frenzy which now possesses him.” It is curious that, in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy,' we have the stages of melancholy, madness, and frenzy, indicated as described by Celsus; and Burton himself mentions frenzy as the worst stage of madness, "clamorous, continual." In the first copy, therefore, Hamlet, according to the description of Polonius, is not only the prey of melancholy and madness, but, "by continuance," of frenzy. In the amended copy the symptoms, according to the same description, are much milder ;—a sadness a fast-a watch-a weakness-a lightness and a madness. The reason of this change appears to us tolerably clear. Shakspere did not, either in his first sketch or his amended copy, intend his audience to believe that Hamlet was essentially mad; and he removed, therefore, the strong expressions which might encourage that belief. Ophelia which follows it, is placed after Hamlet's interview with the players. The soliloquy in the first copy is evidently given with great corruptions, and some of the lines appear transposed by the printer: on the contrary, the scene with Ophelia is very slightly altered. The scene with Polonius, now the second scene of the second act, follows that with Ophelia in the first copy. In the interview with Guildenstern and Rosencrantz the dialogue is greatly elaborated in the amended copy; we have the mere germ of the fine passage, "This goodly frame, the earth," &c.-prose with almost more than the music of poetry. In the first copy, instead of this noble piece of rhetoric, we have the following somewhat tame pas sage: "Yes, faith, this great world you see contents me not; no, nor the spangled heavens, nor earth, nor sea; no, nor man that is so glorious a creature contents not me; no, nor woman too, though you laugh." We pass over for the present the dialogue between Hamlet and the players, in which there are considerable variations, not only between the first and second quartos, but between the second quarto and the folio, tending, as we think, to fix the date of each copy. In the same way we pass over the speeches from the play "that pleased not the million," as well as the directions to the players in the next act. These passages, as it appears to us, go far to establish the point, that the Hamlet' of the edition of 1603 was an early production of the poet. Our readers, we think, will be pleased to compare the following passage of the first copy and the amended play, which offer us an ample of the most surpassing skill in the elaboration of a first idea QUARTO OF 1603. ex "Ham. Horatio, thou art even as just a man As e'er my conversation coped withal. Hor. O, my lord! Ham. Nay, why should I flatter thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd? What gain should I receive by flattering thee, That nothing hath but thy good mind? Let flattery sit on those time-pleasing tongues, To glose with them that love to hear their praise, And not with such as thou, Horatio." QUARTO OF 1604. "Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man As e'er my conversation coped withal. Hor. O, my dear lord,- Nay, do not think I flatter: No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp; Since my dear soul was mistress of my choice, Has ta'en with equal thanks: and bless'd are those, Whose blood and judgment are so well comingled, That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger real drama. Shakspere has most skilfully managed the whole business of the playerking and queen upon this principle; but, as we think, when he wrote his first copy, his power as an artist was not so consummate. In that copy, the first lines of the playerking are singularly flowing and musical ; and their sacrifice shows us how inexorable was his judgment: "Full forty years are pass'd, their date is gone, Since happy time join'd both our hearts as one; And now the blood that fill'd my youthful veins Runs weakly in their pipes, and all the strains The soliloquy of the king in the third act is greatly elaborated from the first copy; and so is the scene between Hamlet and his mother. In the play, as we now have it, Shakspere has left it doubtful whether the queen was privy to the murder of her husband; but in this scene, in the first copy, she says, "Be thou assured if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe What thou hast said to me." The action of the amended copy, for the present, proceeds as in the first copy. Gertrude describes the death of Polonius, and Hamlet pours forth his bitter sarcasm upon the king :-"Your fat king and your lean beggar are but variable services." Hamlet is despatched to England. Fortinbras and his forces appear upon the stage. The fine scene between Hamlet and the captain, and Hamlet's subsequent soliloquy, are not to be found in the quarto of 1603. The madness subtle treason that the king had plotted," says"Then I perceive there's treason in his looks That seem'd to sugar o'er his villainy; But I will soothe and please him for a time, For murderous minds are always jealous.” This is decisive as to Shakspere's original intentions with regard to the queen; but the suppression of the scene in the amended copy is another instance of his admirable judgment. She does not redeem her guilt by entering into plots against her guilty husband; and it is far more characteristic of the irregular impulses of Hamlet's mind, and of his subjection to circumstances, that he should have no confidences with his mother, and should not form with her and Horatio any plans of revenge. The story of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is told in six lines: The scene with Osric is greatly expanded in the amended copy. The catastrophe appears to be the same; but the last leaf of the copy of 1603 is wanting. There is a general belief that some play under the title of 'Hamlet' had preceded the 'Hamlet' of Shakspere. Probable as this may be, it appears to us that this belief is sometimes asserted too authoritatively. Mr. Collier, whose opinion upon such matters is indeed of great value, constantly speaks of "The old 'Hamlet,'" in his 'Annals of the Stage.' Mr. Skottowe is more unqualified in his assertion of this fact:-" The history of Hamlet' formed the subject of a play which was acted previous to 1589; and, arguing from the general course of Shakspere's mind, that play influenced him during the composition of his own 'Hamlet.' But, unfortunately, the old play is lost." In a very useful and accurate work, 'Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual,' we are told in express terms of "Kyd's old play of 'Hamlet.'" Mr. Skottowe and Mr. Lowndes have certainly Queen. "But what became of Gilderstone and mistaken conjecture for proof. Not a tittle Rossencraft? Hor. He being set ashore, they went for England, And in the packet there writ down that doom To be perform'd on them pointed for him: And by great chance he had his father's seal, So all was done without discovery." The expansion of this simple passage into of distinct evidence exists to show that there was any other play of 'Hamlet' but that of Shakspere; and all the collateral evidence upon which it is inferred that an earlier play of Hamlet' than Shakspere's did exist, may, on the other hand, be taken to prove that Shakspere's original sketch of 'Hamlet' was in repute at an earlier period than is commonly assigned as its date. This evidence | atre, with others, and some of note, below is briefly as follows::him in the list of sharers. 6 1. Dr. Farmer, in his Essay on the Learning of Shakspere,' first brought forward a passage in 'An Epistle to the Gentlemen Students of the Two Universities,' by Thomas Nash, prefixed to Green's 'Arcadia,' which he considers directed "very plainly at Shakspere in particular." It is as follows:-"It is a common practise now-a-days, among a sort of shifting companions, that runne through every art, and thrive by none, to leave the trade of Noverint, whereto they were born, and busie themselves with the endevors of art, that could scarcely latinize their neck-verse if they should have neede; yet English Seneca, reade by candle-light, yields many good sentences, as Bloud is a beggar, and so forth: and, if you intreat him farre in a frosty morning, he will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say, handfuls, of tragical speeches." Farmer adds, "I cannot determine exactly when this epistle was first published, but I fancy it would carry the original 'Hamlet' somewhat further back than we have hitherto done." Malone found that this epistle was published in 1589; Mr. Dyce says 1587; but no proof of this earlier date is given (Greene's Works); and he, therefore, was inclined to think that the allusion was not to Shakspere's drama, conjecturing that the 'Hamlet' just mentioned might have been written by Kyd. Brown, in his ingenious work on Shakspere's Sonnets, contends that the passage applies distinctly to Shakspere ;-that the expression, "the trade of Noverint," had reference to some one who had been a lawyer's clerk; -and that the technical use of law phrases by Shakspere proves that his early life had been so employed. We have then only the difficulty of believing that the original sketch of 'Hamlet' was written in, or before, the year 1589. Mr. Brown leaps over the difficulty, and assigns this sketch, as published in the quarto of 1603, to the year 1589. We see nothing extravagant in this belief. Let it be remembered that in that very year, when Shakspere was twenty-five, it has been distinctly proved by Mr. Collier that he was a sharer in the Blackfriars The 2. In the accounts found at Dulwich College, which were kept by Henslowe, an actor contemporary with Shakspere, we find the following entry as connected with the theatre at Newington Butts :— VIII S. "9 of June 1594, Rd. at hamlet The eight shillings constituted Henslowe's share of the profits of this representation. Malone says, that this is a full confirmation that there was a play on the subject of Hamlet prior to Shakspere's; for "it cannot be supposed that our poet's play should have been performed but once in the time of this account, and that Mr. Henslowe should have drawn from such a piece but the sum of eight shillings, when his share in several other plays came to three and sometimes four pounds." We cannot go along with this reasoning. Henslowe's accounts are thus headed :—“ In the name of God, Amen, beginning at Newington, my lord admirell men, and my lord chamberlen men, as followeth, 1594." Now, "my lord chamberlen men were the company to which Shakspere belonged; and one of their theatres, the Globe, was erected in the spring of 1594. The theatre was wholly of wood, according to Hentzner's description of it; it would, therefore, be quickly erected; and it is extremely Mr. probable that Shakspere's company only used the theatre at Newington Butts for a very short period, during the completion of their own theatre, which was devoted to summer performances. We can find nothing in Malone's argument to prove that it was not Shakspere's 'Hamlet' which was acted by Shakspere's company on the 9th of June, 1594. On the previous 16th of May, Henslowe's accounts are headed, "by my lord admirell's men ;" and it is only on the 3rd of June that we find the "lord chamberlen men," as well as the "lord admirell men," performing at this theatre. Their occupation of it might have been very temporary ; and, during that occupation, Shakspere's Hamlet' might have been once performed. The very next entry, the 11th of June, is, "at the taminge of a shrewe ;" and Malone, in a note, adds, "the play which preceded | comparison of the original sketch with the Shakspere's." When Malone wrote this note, he believed that Shakspere's 'Taming of the Shrew was a late production; but, in the second edition of his 'Chronological Order,' he is persuaded that it was one of his very early productions. There is nothing to prove that both these plays thus acted were not Shakspere's. 3. In a tract entitled 'Wit's Miserie, or the World's Madnesse,' by Thomas Lodge, printed in 1596, one of the devils is said to be “a foul lubber, and looks as pale as the vizard of the ghost, who cried so miserably at the theatre, Hamlet, revenge." In the first edition of Malone's 'Chronological Order,' he says, "If the allusion was to our author's tragedy, this passage will ascertain its appearance in or before 1596; but Lodge may have had the elder play in his contemplation." In the second edition of this essay, Malone changes his opinion, and says, "Lodge must have had the elder play in his contemplation." 4. Steevens, in his Preliminary Remarks to Hamlet,' has this passage:-"I have seen a copy of Speght's edition of Chaucer,' which formerly belonged to Dr. Gabriel Harvey (the antagonist of Nash), who, in his own hand-writing, has set down 'Hamlet' as a performance with which he was well acquainted, in the year 1598." Malone considered this decisive in the first edition of his 'Chronological Order,' but in the second edition, having seen the book, he persuaded himself that the date 1598 referred to the time when Harvey purchased it; and he therefore rejects the evidence. He then peremptorily fixes the first appearance of 'Hamlet' in 1600, from the reference that is made in it to the "inhibition" of the players. We shall speak of this presently. In the mean time it may be sufficient to remark, that the passage is not found in the first quarto of 1603, of the existence of which Malone was uninformed; and that, therefore, this proof goes for nothing. And now, leaving our readers to form their own judgment upon the external evidence as to the date of 'Hamlet,' we must express our decided opinion, grounded upon an attentive perfect play, that the original sketch was an early production of our poet. The copy of 1603 is no doubt piratical; it is unquestionably very imperfectly printed. But, if the passage about the “inhibition" of the players fixes the date of the perfect play at 1600, which we believe it does, the essential differences between the sketch and the perfect play-differences which do not depend upon the corruption of a text-can only be accounted for upon the belief that there was a considerable interval between the production of the first and second copy, in which the author's power and judgment had become mature, and his peculiar habits of philosophical thought had been completely established. This is a matter which does not admit of proof within our limited space; but the passages which we have already given from the original copy do something to prove it, and we have other differences of the same character to point out, which we shall do as briefly as possible. Mr. Hallam (in his admirable work, the "Introduction to the Literature of Europe'), speaking of Romeo and Juliet' as an early production of our poet, points out, as a proof of this, "the want of that thoughtful philosophy, which, when once it had germinated in Shakspere's mind, never ceased to display itself."* 'Hamlet,' as it now stands, is full of this "thoughtful philosophy." But the original sketch, as given in the quarto of 1603, exhibits few traces of it in the form of didactic observations. The whole dramatic conduct of the action is indeed demonstrative of a philosophical conception of incidents and characters; but, in the form to which Mr. Hallam refers, the "thoughtful philosophy" is almost entirely wanting in that sketch. We must indicate a few examples very briefly, of passages illustrating this position, which are not there found, requesting our readers to refer to the text:— Act I., Sc. 3. "For nature, crescent," &c. |