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INTRODUCTION.

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THE story upon which, there is reason to believe, Shakespeare founded his tragedy of "Hamlet," has recently been reprinted, from the only known perfect copy', as part of a work called “Shakespeare's Library ;" and there is, perhaps, nothing more remarkable than the manner in which our great dramatist wrought these barbarous, uncouth, and scanty materials into the magnificent structure he left behind him. A comparison of "The Historie of Hamblet,” as it was translated at an early date from the French of Belleforest, with The Tragedy of Hamlet," is calculated to give us the most exalted notion of, and profound reverence for, the genius of Shakespeare: his vast superiority to Greene and Lodge was obvious in "The Winter's Tale," and "As You Like It;" but the novels of "Pandosto" and Rosalynde," as narratives, were perhaps as far above "The Historie of Hamblet," as "The Winter's Tale" and "As You Like It" were above the originals from which their main incidents were derived. Nothing, in point of fact, can be much more worthless, in story and style, than the production to which it is supposed Shakespeare was indebted for the foundation of his "Hamlet."

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There is, however, some ground for thinking, that a lost play upon similar incidents preceded the work of Shakespeare: how far that lost play might be an improvement upon the old translated "Historie " we have no means of deciding, nor to what extent Shakespeare availed himself of such improvement. A drama, of which Hamlet was the hero, was certainly in being prior to the year 1587, (in all probability too early a date for Shakespeare to have been the writer of it) for we find it thus alluded to by Thomas Nash, in his preliminary epistle to the "Menaphon" of Robert Greene, published in that year:-" Yet English Seneca, read by candle

1 Dr. Farmer had an imperfect copy of it, but it is preserved entire among Capell's books in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, and was printed in 1608, by Richard Bradocke, for Thomas Pavier. "There can be little doubt that it had originally come from the press considerably before the commencement of the seventeenth century, although the multiplicity of readers of productions of the kind, and the carelessness with which such books were regarded after perusal, has led to the destruction, as far as can now be ascertained, of every earlier copy."—Introduction to Part IV. of " Shakespeare's Library." 2 Belleforest derived his knowledge of the incidents from the History of Denmark, by Saxo Grammaticus, first printed in 1514.

3 We give the date of 1587 on the excellent authority of the Rev. A. Dyce,

light, yeelds many good sentences, as blood is a beggar, and so forth; and if you entreat him fair in a frosty morning, he will afford you whole Hamlets, I should say handfuls, of tragical speeches." The writer is referring to play-poets and their productions at that period, and he seems to have gone out of his way, in order to introduce the very name of the performance against which he was directing ridicule. Another piece of evidence, to the same effect, but of a more questionable kind, is to be found in Henslowe's Diary, under the date of June 9th, 1594, when a "Hamlet" was represented at the theatre at Newington Butts: that it was then an old play is ascertained from the absence of the mark, which the old manager usually prefixed to first performances, and from the fact that his share of the receipts was only nine shillings. At that date, however, the company to which Shakespeare belonged was in joint occupation of the same theatre, and it is certainly possible, though improbable, that the drama represented on June 9th, 1594, was Shakespeare's "Hamlet.”

We feel confident, however, that the "Hamlet" which has come down to us in at least six quarto impressions, in the folio of 1623, and in the later impressions in that form, was not written until the winter of 1601, or the spring of 1602.

Malone, Steevens, and the other commentators, were acquainted with no edition of the tragedy anterior to the quarto of 1604, which professes to be "enlarged to almost as much again as it was :" they, therefore, reasonably suspected that it had been printed before; and within the last twenty years a single copy of an edition in 1603 has been discovered. This, in fact, seems to have been the abbreviated and imperfect edition, consisting of only about half as much as the impression of 1604. It belongs to the Duke of Devonshire, and, by the favour of his Grace, is now before us. From whose press it came we have no information, but it professed to be "printed for N. L. and Iohn Trundell." The edition of the following year was printed by I. R. for N. L. only; and why Trundell ceased to have any interest in the publication we know not. N. L. was Nicholas Ling; and I. R., the printer of the edition of 1604, was, no doubt, James Roberts, who, two years before, had made the following entry in the Registers of the Stationers' Company :

“26 July 1602.

James Roberts] A booke, The Revenge of Hamlett prince of Denmarke, as yt was latelie acted by the Lord Chamberlayn his servantes."

The words, "as it was lately acted," are important upon the

(Greene's Works, vol. i. pp. xxxvii. and ciii.) We have never been able to meet with any impression earlier than that of 1589. Sir Egerton Brydges reprinted the tract from the edition of 1616, (when its name had been changed to "Green's Arcadia,") in "Archaica,” vol. i.

question of date, and the entry farther proves, that the tragedy had been performed by the company to which Shakespeare belonged. In the spring of 1603 "the Lord Chamberlain's servants" became the King's players; and on the title-page of the quarto of 1603 it is asserted that it had been acted "by his Highness' servants." On the title-page of the quarto of 1604 we are not informed that the tragedy had been acted by any company.

Thus we see, that in July, 1602, there was an intention to print and publish a play called "The Revenge of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," and this intention, we may fairly conclude, arose out of the popularity of the piece, as it was then acted by "the Lord Chamberlain's servants," who, in May following, obtained the title of "the King's players." The object of Roberts in making the entry, already quoted, was to secure it 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. Such, we have little doubt, was the origin of the impression of which only a single copy has reached our day, and of which, probably, but a few were sold, as its worthlessness was soon discovered, and it was quickly entirely superseded by the enlarged impression of 1604.

As an accurate reprint was made in 1825 of "The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke," 1603, it will be unnecessary to go in detail into proofs to establish, as we could do without much difficulty, the following points:-1. That great part of the play, as it there stands, was taken down in short-hand. 2. That where mechanical skill failed the short-hand writer, he either filled up the blanks from memory, or employed an inferior writer to assist him. 3. That although some of the scenes were carelessly transposed, and others entirely omitted in the edition of 1603, the drama, as it was acted while the short-hand writer was employed in taking it down, was, in all its main features, the same as the more perfect copy of the tragedy printed with the date of 1604. It is true that in the edition of 1603 Polonius is called Corambis, and his servant Montano, and we may not be able to determine why these changes were made in the immediately subsequent impression; but we may perhaps conjecture that they were names in the older play on the same story, or names which Shakespeare at first introduced, and subsequently thought fit to reject. We know that Ben Jonson changed the whole dramatis persona of his "Every Man in his Humour."

But although we entirely reject the quarto of 1603 as an authentic "Hamlet," it is of high value in enabling us to settle the text of various important passages. It proves, besides, that certain portions of the play, as it appears in the folio of 1623, which do not form part of the quarto of 1604, were originally acted, and were not, as has been hitherto imagined, subsequent introductions. We have pointed out these and other peculiarities so fully in our notes, that we need not dwell upon them here; but we may mention, that in Act iii. sc. 4, the quarto of 1603 explains a curious point of stagebusiness, which puzzled all the commentators. Just as the Ghost is departing from the Queen's closet, Hamlet exclaims,

"Look, how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he lived!”

Malone, Steevens, and Monck Mason argue the question, whether in this scene the Ghost, as in former scenes, ought to wear armour, or to be dressed in "his own familiar habit ;" and they conclude, either that Shakespeare had "forgotten himself," or had meant "to vary the dress of the Ghost at this his last appearance." The quarto of 1603, shows exactly how the poet's intention was carried into effect, for there we meet with the stage-direction, "Enter the Ghost in his night-gown," and such was unquestionably the appearance of the performer of the part when the short-hand writer saw the tragedy, with a view to the speedy publication of a fraudulent impression. "My father, in the habit as he lived," are the words he recorded from the mouth of the actor of Hamlet.

The impression of 1604 being intended to supersede that of 1603, which gave a most mangled and imperfect notion of the drama in its true state, we may perhaps presume that the quarto of 1604 was, at least, as authentic a copy of "Hamlet" as the editions of any of Shakespeare's plays that came from the press during his lifetime. It contains various passages, some of them of great importance to the conduct and character of the hero, not to be found in the folio of 1623; while the folio includes other passages which are left out in the quarto of 1604, although, as before remarked, we have the evidence of the quarto of 1603, that they were originally acted. The different quarto impressions were printed from each other, and even that of 1637, though it makes some verbal changes, contains no distinct indication that the printer had resorted to the folios.

The three later folios, in this instance as in others, were printed from the immediately preceding edition in the same form; but we are inclined to think, that if "Hamlet," in the folio of 1623, were not composed from some now unknown quarto, it was derived from a manuscript obtained by Heminge and Condell from the theatre. The Acts and Scenes are, however, marked only in the first and second Acts, after which no divisions of the kind are noticed, and where Act

iii. commences is merely matter of modern conjecture. Some large portions of the play appear to have been omitted for the sake of shortening the performance; and any editor who should content himself with reprinting the folio, without large additions from the quartos, would present but an imperfect notion of the drama as it came from the hand of the poet. The text of "Hamlet" is, in fact, only to be obtained from a comparison of the editions in quarto and folio, but the misprints in the latter are quite as numerous and glaring as in the former. In various instances we have been able to correct the one by the other, and it is in this respect chiefly that the quarto of 1603 is of intrinsic value.

Coleridge, after vindicating himself from the accusation that he had derived his ideas of Hamlet from Schlegel, (and we heard him broach them some years before the Lectures Ueber Dramatische Kunst und Litteratur were published) thus, in a few sentences, sums up the character of Hamlet. "In Hamlet Shakespeare seems to have wished to exemplify the moral necessity of a due balance between our attention to the objects of our senses, and our meditation on the workings of our minds,—an equilibrium between the real and the imaginary worlds. In Hamlet this balance is disturbed his thoughts and the images of his fancy are far more vivid than his actual perceptions, and his very perceptions, instantly passing through the medium of his contemplations, acquire, as they pass, a form and a colour not naturally their own. Hence we see a great, an almost enormous, intellectual activity, and a proportionate aversion to real action consequent upon it, with all its symptoms and accompanying qualities. This character Shakespeare places in circumstances under which it is obliged to act on the spur of the moment. Hamlet is brave, and careless of death; but he vacillates from sensibility, and procrastinates from thought, and loses the power of action in the energy of resolve." (Lit. Rem. vol. ii. p. 205.)

It has generally been supposed that Joseph Taylor was the original actor of Hamlet, and Wright, in his "Historia Histrionica," 1699, certainly speaks of him as having performed the part. This, however, must have been after the death of Richard Burbage, which happened precisely eighty years before Wright published his tract: we know from the manuscript Elegy upon Burbage, sold among Heber's books, that he was the earliest representative of Hamlet; and there the circumstance of his being "fat and scant of breath," in the fencing scene, is noticed in the very words of Shakespeare. Taylor did not belong to the company for which Shakespeare wrote at the date when "Hamlet" was produced.

VOL. VII.

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