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and torments herself, being sore grieved to see her only child made a mere mockery. He lays before her the wickedness of her life and the crimes of her husband, and also lets her into the secret of his madness being seigned, Behold," says he, into what dis tress I am fallen, and to what mischief your over-great lightness and want of wisdom have induced me, that I am constrained to play the madman to save my life, instead of practising arms, following adventures, and seeking to make myself known as the true heir of the valiant and virtuous Horvendile. The gestures of a fool are fit for me, to the end that, guiding myself wisely therein, I may preserve my life for the Danes, and the memory of my deceased father; for the desire of revenging his death is so engraven in my heart, that, if I die not shortly, I hope to take so great vengeance that these countries shall forever speak thereof. Nevertheless, I must stay my time and occasion, lest by making overTo great haste I be the cause of mine own ruin and overthrow. conclude, weep not, madam, to see my folly, but rather sigh and lament your own offence; for we are not to sorrow and grieve at other men's vices, but for our own misdeeds and great follies."

The interview ends in an agreement of mutual confidence between Hamblet and his mother; all her anger at his sharp reproofs being forgotten in the joy she conceives, to behold the gallant spirit of her son, and to think what she might hope from his policy and wisdom. She promises to keep his secret faithful ly, and to aid him all she can in his purpose of revenge; swearing to him that she had often hindered the shortening of his life, and that she had never consented to the murder of his father.

Fengon's next device was, to send Hamblet into England, with secret letters to have him there put to death. Hamblet, again suspecting mischief, comes to some speech with his mother, and desires her not to make any show of grief at his departure, but He rather to counterfeit gladuess at being rid of his presence. also counsels her to celebrate his funeral at the end of a year, and assures her that she shall then see him return from his voyage. Two of Fengon's ministers being sent along with him with secret letters to the king of England, when they were at sea, the Prince, his companions being asleep, read their commission, and substituted for it one requiring the messengers to be hung. After this was done, he returned to Denmark, and arrived the very day when the Danes were celebrating his funeral, supposing him to be dead. Fengon and his courtiers were then at their banquet, and Hamblet's arrival provoked them the more to drink and carouse; wherein Hamblet encouraged them, himself acting as butler, and keeping them supplied with liquor, until they were all laid drunk on the floor. When they were all fast asleep, he caused the hangings of the room to fall down and cover them; then, having nailed the edges fast to the floor so that none could escape, he set fire to the hall, and all were burnt to death. Fengon having previously

withdrawn to his chamber, Hamblet then went to him, and, after telling him what he had done, cut off his head with a sword.

The next day, Hamblet makes an oration to the Danes, laying open to them his uncle's treachery, and what himself has done in revenge of his father's death; whereupon he is unanimously elected king. After his coronation, he goes to England again. Finding that the king of England has a plot for putting him to death, he manages to kill him, and returns to Denmark with two wives. He is afterwards assailed by his uncle Wiglerus, and finally betrayed to death by one of his English wives named Hermetrude, who then marries Wiglerus.

There is, besides, an episodical passage in the tale, from which the Poet probably took some hints towards the part of his hero, especially his melancholy mood, and his suspicion that “the spirit he has seen may be a devil:" In those days, the north parts of the world, living then under Satan's laws, were full of enchanters, so that there was not any young gentleman that knew not something therein sufficient to serve his turn, if need required; and so Hamblet, while his father lived, had been instructed in that devlish art, whereby the wicked spirit abuseth mankind, and advertiseth them, as he can, of things past. It toucheth not the matter herein to discover the parts of divination in man, and whether this Prince, by reason of his over-great melancholy, had received those impressions, divining that which never any had before declared ; like such as are saturnists by complexion, who oftentimes speak of things which, their fury ceasing, they can hardly understand." It is hardly needful to add, that Shakespeare makes his persons Christians, giving them the sentiments and manners of a much later period than they have in the tale; though he still places the scene at a time when England paid some sort of homage to the Danish crown, which was before the Norman conquest.

The earliest edition of the tragedy, in its finished state, was a quarto pamphlet of fifty-one leaves, the title-page reading thus: "The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: By William Shakespeare. Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was, according to the true and perfect copy. At London Printed by J. R. for N. L., and are to be sold at his shop under St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet-street. 1604." The same text was reissued in the same form in 1605, and again in 1611; besides an undated edition, which is commonly referred to 1607, as it was entered at the Stationers' in the fall of that year. In the folio of 1623, it stands the eighth of the tragedies, and is without any marking of the Acts and scenes save in the first two Acts. The folio also omits several passages that are among the best in the play, and some of them highly important to the right understanding of the hero's character. All these are duly attended to in our notes, so that they need not be specified here. On the other hand, the folio has a few short passages, and here and

there a line or two, that are not in the quartos. These, also, are duly noted as they occur. On the whole, the quartos give the play considerably longer than the folio; the latter having been most likely printed from a play-house copy, which had been shortened, in some cases not very judiciously, for the greater conve nience of representation.

From the words, " enlarged to almost as much again as it was," in the title-page of 1604, it was for a long time conjectured that the play had been printed before At length, in 1825, a single copy of an earlier edition was discovered, and the text accurately reprinted, with the following title-page: "The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: By William Shakespeare. As it hath been divers times acted by his Highness Servants, in the city of London; as also in the two Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and elsewhere. At London: Printed for N. L. and John Trundell. 1603." There is no doubt that this edition was pi ratical it gives the play but about half as long as the later quar tos; and carries in its face abundant evidence of having been greatly marred and disfigured in the making-up.

As to the methods used in getting up the edition of 1603, a care ful examination of the text has satisfied us that they were much the same as appear to have been made use of in the quarto issues of King Henry V., and The Merry Wives of Windsor; of which some account is given in our Introductions to those plays. From divers minute particulars which cannot be specified without overmuch of detail, it seems very evident that the printing was done, for the most part, from rude reports taken at the theatre during representation, with, perhaps, some subsequent eking out and patching up from memory. There are indeed a few passages that seem to be given with much purity and completeness; they have an integrity of sense and language, that argues a faithful transcript; as, for instance, the speech of Voltimand in Act ii. sc. 2, which scarcely differs at all from the speech as we have it but there is barely enough of this to serve as an exception to the rule. As to the other parts, the garbled and dislocated state of the text, where we often have the first of a sentence without the last, or the last without the first, or the first and last without the middle; the constant lameness of the verse where verse was meant, and the bungling attempts to print prose so as to look like verse; - all this proves beyond question, that the quarto of 1603 was by no means a faithful transcript of the play as it then stood; and the imperfectness is of just that kind and degree which would naturally adhere to the work of a slovenly or incompetent reporter.

On the other hand, it is equally clear, that at the time that copy was taken the play must have been very different from what it afterwards became. Polonius is there called Corambis, and his servant, Montano. Divers scenes and passages, some of them such as a repor'er would have been least likely to omit, are there

wanting altogether. The Queen is there represented as concerting and actively co-operating with Hamlet against the King's life; and she has an interview of considerable length with Horatio, who informs her of Hamlet's escape from the ship hound for England, and of his safe arrival in Denmark; of which scene the later issues have no traces whatsoever. All this fully ascertains that the play must have undergone a thorough revisal after the making up of the copy from which the first quarto was printed. But, what is not a little remarkable, some of the passages met with in the folio, but not in the enlarged quartos, are found in the quarto of 1603; which shows that they were omitted in the later quartos, and not added afterwards.

With such and so many copies before us, it may well be asked, where the true text of Hamlet is to be found. The quarto of 1603, though furnishing valuable aid in divers cases, is not of any real authority: this is clear enough from what has already been said about it. On the other hand, it can hardly be questioned that the issue of 1604 was as authentic and as well authorised, as any that were made of Shakespeare's plays while he was living. We therefore take this as our main standard of the text, retaining, however, all the additional passages found in the folio of 1623. Moreover, the folio has many important changes and corrections which no reasonable editor would make any question of adopting. Mr. Knight indeed, who, after the true style of Knight-errantry, everywhere gives himself up to an almost unreserved championship of the folio, takes that as the supreme authority. But in this case, as usual, his zeal betrays him into something of unfairness: for wherever he prefers a folio reading, (and some of his preferences are odd enough,) he carefully notes it; but in divers cases, where the quarto readings are so clearly preferable that he dare not reject them, we have caught him adopting them without making any note of them. Taking the quarto of 1604 as our standard, whenever we adopt any variation of much importance from this, it will be found specified in our notes. And in many other cases, where the folio readings can plead any fair title to prefer ence, we give them in the margin, though not ourselves preferring them; so that the reader can exercise his own choice in the

matter.

The next question to be considered is, at what time was the tragedy of Hamlet originally written? On this point we find it extremely difficult to form a clear judgment. Thus muen, however, is quite certain, that either this play was one of the Poet's very earliest productions, or else there was another play on the same subject. This certainty rests on a passage in an Epistle by Thomas Nash, prefixed to Greene's Arcadia: "It is a common practice now-a-days, among a sort of shifting companions that run through every art and thrive by none, to leave the trade of Noverint whereto they were born, and busy themselves with the

endeavours of art, that could scarcely latinise their neck-verse, if they sould have need; yet English Seneca, read by candle-light, yields 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 words, "trade of Noverint," show that this squib was pointed at some writer of Hamlet, who had been known as an apprentice in the law; and Shakespeare's remarkable fondness for legal terms and allusions naturally suggests him as the person referred to. Oc the other hand, Nash's Epistle was written certainly as early as 1589, probably two years earlier, though this has been disputed. In 1589 Shakespeare was in his twenty-sixth year, and his name stood the twelfth in a list of sixteen, as a sharer in the Blackfriars play-house. The chief difficulty lies in believing that he could have been known so early as the author of a tragedy having Hamlet for its hero; but this difficulty is much reduced by the circumstance, that we have no knowledge how often or how much he may have improved a piece of that kind even before the copy of 1603 was made up.

Again: It appears from Henslowe's accounts that a play of Hamlet was performed in the theatre at Newington Butts on the 9th of June, 1594. At this time, my lord admirell men and my lord chamberlen men "" were playing together at that theatre; the latter of whom was the company to which Shakespeare belonged. At the performance of Hamlet, Henslowe sets down nine shillings as his share of the receipts; whereas in case of new plays he commonly received a much larger sum. Besides, the item in question is without the mark which the manager usually prefixed in case of a new play; so that we may conclude the Hamlet of 1594 had at that time lost the feature of novelty. The question is, whether the Hamlet thus performed was Shakespeare's ? That it was so, might naturally be inferred from the fact that the Lord Chamberlain's men were then playing there; besides, it has at least some probability, in that on the 11th of the same month Henslowe notes "The Taming of a Shrew" as having been performed at the same place. Whether this latter were Shakespeare's play, has been sufficiently considered in our Introduction to The Taming of the Shrew.

The next particular, bearing upon the subject, is from a tract by Thomas Lodge, printed in 1596, and entitled "Wit's Misery, or The World's Madness, discovering the incarnate Devils of the Age;" where 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." All these three notices are regarded by Malone and some others as referring to another play of Hamlet, which they suppose to have been written by Thomas Kyd; though their only reason for thinking there was such another play, is the alleged imo-obability of the Poet's having so early written on that subject.