but a Brummagem imitation of Hamlet after all-if Shakespeare's play had not appeared. As a specimen of one of the later imitations of Hamlet, we may mention that little-known tragedy The Fatal Contract, by William Hemings, Master of Arts at Oxford, printed in 1661, but acted before that. In that play we have an Aphelia and a Ghost in armour; and, though the story of the play is totally different, many passages from Hamlet are either adapted or closely imitated. The Cambridge editors say that the text of Hamlet in the Folio of 1623 is derived from an independent MS., one which had evidently been curtailed for the purpose of representation. Some passages are however found in the Folio which are not found in Q. 2, or in its successors, but some of which " are found in an imperfect form in the Quarto of 1603, and therefore are not subsequent additions" (vol. viii. p. xi.). The text is, in this edition, like that of most editors, founded upon a combination of those of Q. 2 and F. 1. STAGE HISTORY. From the time of its first production to the present day the tragedy of Hamlet seems to have kept a firmer and more uninterrupted hold upon the stage than any other play of Shakespeare's. Except during that brief and gloomy period, when Puritanism was in the ascendant, and no rational or wholesome amusements were allowed to the English people, one may venture to say that not a single year passed without it being represented several times, not only in London, but in the provinces. It is a common saying, amongst people connected with the stage, that no actor has ever yet positively failed in Hamlet; and managers, in town and country, will tell you that you have only to put Hamlet up, even with a bad cast, and you may rely on a fairly good house. Be the reason what it may, it is certain that, for the general public, who are not afflicted with that elegant complaint known as ennui or boredom-generally the result of too close an intimacy with and complete subserviency to one's own self, for ordinary people who have not emasculated their minds and passions, Hamlet, even imperfectly represented, has always had a strong interest: while, whenever an actor of talent, to say nothing of genius, attempts the chief part, he is sure to attract a numerous and attentive audience. One need not go far back in the annals of the English stage to learn that on those few occasions when an actor of real genius has arisen to throw a new light upon the complex character of Hamlet, the theatre-going public have always evinced their sympathy and interest by flocking night after night to see such a performance. This extraordinary popularity of Hamlet as an acting play is full of instruction to two classes of persons; first, to those who are never tired of declaring that the taste of the present day necessitates a total separation between literature and the drama; secondly, to those who are always sneering feebly and dyspeptically at the actor's art— persons ravenously jealous of the applause which the actor receives, but which the public ungenerously withholds from them in any of their multifarious capacities. These latter may lay to heart the undoubted fact that Hamlet, the most poetic in some respects of any of Shakespeare's plays, could not have been written by anyone but a practised actor familiar with the stage and all its ways; also this fact, scarcely less disputable, that all the reams of criticism, which have been written on the character of Hamlet, have not been able to bring home to the minds of men the real meaning of the character so clearly as a single performance of some great actor. I have already alluded, in the Literary History of this play, to the peculiarity of the title-page of the first Quarto (1603). It is the only one of all the Shakespearian Quartos that contains any specific reference to performances out of London. If we are to believe that title-page, then, we know that Hamlet in its unrevised form was acted at both universities, and elsewhere in the provinces by some company, probably not Shakespeare's own. These performances may have been simultaneous with those of the revised play in London by the Lord-Chamberlain's company to which Shakespeare belonged; or they may have taken place before Shakespeare produced his revised version. At any rate, during the lifetime of its author, Hamlet was already a popular play, and this is proved by the numerous allusions to it by contemporary writers. Of these allusions to the play as an acted play, one of the earliest and most interesting is an entry in the "journal" or logbook of Captain Keeling of the ship Dragon, in 1607; "September 5 [at 'Serra Leona'] I sent the interpreter, according to his desier, abord the Hector, whear he brooke fast, and after came abord mee, wher we gave the tragedie of Hamlett;" and again on the 31st of the same month, "I envited Captain Hawkins to a ffishe dinner, and had Hamlet acted abord," adding "wch I permitt to keepe my people from idlenes and unlawful games, or sleepe" (Shakespere's Centurie of Prayse, p. 79). The next reference we find is in an elegy on "ye Death of the famous Actor Richard Burbedg," which mentions Hamlet amongst his characters: hee's gone & wth him what A world are dead. which he reuiu'd, to be reuiued soe, no more young Hamlett, ould Heironymoe, &c. -Centurie of Prayse, p. 131. The materials for the stage history of any play during the reigns of James I. and Charles I. are very scanty; but the two following extracts may serve to show that this play was still a very popular one. In Anthropophagus: the Man-Eater, 1624, p. 14, by E. S., speaking of flatterers the author says: for they are like Hamlets ghost, hic et ubique, here and there, and every where, for their oune occasion;" and in John Gee's New Shreds of the old Snare, 1624: “As for examples the Ghost in Hamblet, Don Andreas Ghost in Hieronimo" (Centurie of Prayse, p. 160). Pepys saw Hamlet on August 24th, 1661, at the Opera-that is to say, the House in Lincoln's Inn Fields-"done with scenes very well, but above all, Betterton did the Prince's parts beyond imagination" (vol. i. p. 342); and again, on November 28th of the same year, "very well done" (p. 382). Downes' first mention of Hamlet is in 1662, among the plays acted at the new theatre (Sir William Davenant's) in Lincoln's Inn Fields: "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Hamlet being performed by Mr. Betterton: Sir William (having seen Mr. Taylor, of the Black-Fryars Company, act it; who being instructed by the Author Mr. Shakespear) taught Mr. Betterton in every particle of it, gain'd him esteem and reputation superlative to all other plays. Horatio by Mr. Harris; the King by Mr. Lilliston; the Ghost by Mr. Richards; (after by Mr. Medburn.) Polonius by Mr. Lovel; Rosencrans by Mr. Dixon; Guilderstern by Mr. Price; 1st. Gravemaker by Mr. Underhill; the 2d. by Mr. Dacres; the Queen by Mrs. Davenport; Ophelia by Mrs. Saunderson" (afterwards Mrs. Betterton): “No succeeding Tragedy for several years got more reputation or money to the Company than this" (pp. 29, 30). This account of Downes incidentally opens the question as to who was the original representative of Hamlet, Taylor or Burbage? This is a point on which we have no decisive evidence. But whether Burbage was the original of Hamlet or not, we know that he acted the part and identified himself, to a great measure, with it, as will be seen from the funeral elegy on his death already quoted. Taylor, according to the Historia Histrionica, acted Hamlet "incomparably well." Pepys saw Hamlet again on May 28th, 1663, and on August 31st, 1668, on which latter occasion he says that he had not seen it "this year before, or more; and mightily pleased with it, but above all with Betterton, the best part, I believe, that ever man acted” (vol. v. p. 347). So long as Betterton lived no one seems to have cared to dispute his supremacy in this part. In the Quarto, 1695,1 as well as in the octavo edition, 1 The cast prefixed to this edn. shows that except Betterton and his wife there were few survivors from the cast of 1662: Claudius, King of Denmark... two Courtiers Mr. Crosby. Mr. Betterton. Mr. Smith. Mr. Lee. Mr. Nouke. Mr. Young. Mr. Norris. Mr. Cademan. Mr. Williams. Mrs. Shadwel. Mrs. Betterton. 1703, his name is in the cast. On December 20th, 1709, we find him at the Haymarket Theatre still acting Hamlet, though now above 70 years old, with the manner, gesture, and voice of youth. Even the crabbed Antony Aston was obliged to acknowledge that though Betterton in his old age could no longer look the Prince of Denmark, yet he was Hamlet. This must have been the last occasion on which he played the part, for on the 13th April, 1710, in the same season he made his last appearance as Melantius in the Maid's Tragedy. Rather than disappoint the public, he is said to have plunged his gouty foot into cold water in order to enable him to walk on the stage in a slipper. The result was that the disease flew to his head, and he was carried home from the theatre only to die. During Betterton's latter years Wilks and Powell both played Hamlet, but neither of them seems to have made any great impression in the part. At Drury Lane on February 14th, 1710, Miss Santlow, afterwards Mrs. Booth, played Ophelia for the first time; and after having drowned herself, apparently came to life again to speak the epilogue "in boy's clothes" (Genest, vol. ii. p. 435). Mrs. Mountford on November 6th, 1705, appeared, for the first time, as Ophelia at Drury Lane. According to an anecdote, said to have been related by Colley Cibber to the celebrated George Anne Bellamy, she subsequently became insane; but her madness not being of a violent nature, she was allowed a certain measure of freedom. One evening, learning that Hamlet was being played at the theatre, she managed to give her attendants the slip, and, to the astonishment alike of actors and audience, pushed on to the stage in the mad scene before the actress who was playing Ophelia could prevent her, when she gave what must have been one of the most touching realizations of that pathetic scene ever witnessed. This was indeed her last appearance, for death soon after put an end to her misery. In the interval between Betterton's death and the appearance of Garrick, besides W. Powell already mentioned, Mills, Ryan, and Millward seem to have been the only representatives of Hamlet. Booth, curious to say, never seems to have attempted this part, but contented himself with that of the Ghost, as did Boheme. Quin wisely left the young Prince of Denmark alone. He played the King to Ryan's Hamlet at Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1718, 1719; and later on he appeared as the Ghost at Drury Lane, apparently for the first time, in the season 1731-32, probably to the Hamlet of Wilks. This was a part which Quin's stately style of elocution well became, and it appears to have been one of his most successful characters. A handsome young Irishman, Dennis Delane, whose physical advantages atoned, with one portion of the audience at anyrate, for defects in his elocution and action, had appeared as Hamlet at Drury Lane on March 15th, 1742; having previously played the Ghost on January 26th of the same year, when Millward being unable to perform, Hamlet had to be read by Cibber, jun.; which must have been very like the tragedy with the Prince of Denmark left out. But Delane's rising fame was quite obscured by the appearance of Garrick as Hamlet for the first time in England-he had played the part in Ireland-on November 16th, 1742; on which occasion Delane, as the Ghost, had plenty of opportunities to observe his rival's triumph. The cast included Hallam as Laertes, Taswell as Polonius, and Macklin as the First Gravedigger, with Mrs. Pritchard as the Queen, and Mrs. Clive as Ophelia. In spite of his unsuitable dress and his trick chair1 in the closet scene, Garrick's Hamlet was a great success. He played it again, for his benefit, on the 13th January, and during this season (1742--43) no less than thirteen times. While Garrick was establishing his fame in Hamlet and other Shakespearean characters, the rival house at Covent Garden could only oppose such attractions as Ryan in Hamlet, supported by Quin as the Ghost and Mrs. Clive as Ophelia. On March 31st, 1744, the Irish actor Sheridan made his first appearance on the English stage as Hamlet, with Mrs. Pritchard as the Queen. Hamlet was one of the six characters that Garrick played in the summer of 1746 at Covent Garden, receiv 1 A chair so made that, when he rose from it, it fell over. The ing £300 for the six performances. On this occasion it may be worth noticing that Shuter appeared as Osric. This was an early performance of the celebrated comedian who, later in his career, was one of the most truly comic representatives of the First Gravedigger. In the next season, at Drury Lane, appeared the most formidable rival Garrick ever had to encounter, Spranger Barry, an Irish actor, who made his first appearance as Hamlet, at Drury Lane, for Macklin's benefit on the 24th March, 1747, but was never able to eclipse Garrick in this part as he did undoubtedly in that of Othello. On March 20th, 1755, for Woodward's benefit, there was a very strong cast in Hamlet, which included besides Garrick Mrs. Pritchard as the Queen, and Mrs. Cibber as Ophelia, and the bénéficiaire himself as Polonius, a part which did not suit him so well as that of Osric. actor, who seems to have taken Garrick's place as Hamlet most frequently during his particularly short career on the stage, was Charles Holland, whom Churchill censures so much for his imitation of his great manager and master. Genest relates an amusing anecdote of this actor, with reference to the admirable reform introduced by Garrick in the season 1762-63, namely, the enlargement of Drury Lane so as to do away with the necessity of having members of the audience seated in a built-up amphitheatre on the stage, at benefits and other specially attractive performances. Holland was playing Hamlet for his first benefit, and the seats on the stage were filled with people from Chiswick, his native place. When the Ghost appeared, by the usual stage trick Hamlet's hat flew off, and it fell at the feet of a young damsel from Chiswick, who was a great admirer of Holland. She, with the very best intentions, picked up the hat, stole softly from her seat, and placed it on Holland's head, with the broad corner foremost as generally worn by drunken men; and Holland, unconscious of the ridiculous appearance he presented, went on with the scene, to the huge delight of the audience. At Covent Garden on April 25th, 1788, for Bensley's benefit, William Powell made his first appearance as Hamlet with, "for that night only," Mrs. Yates as the Queen. He repeated the part three times in the following season. Had not this promising actor died at the premature age of thirty-four, it is possible he might have proved a serious rival to Garrick. Hamlet had hitherto escaped the desecrating hand of adapters or mutilators such as Davenant, Dryden, Tait, Cibber, and others; but in an evil moment it occurred to Garrick to try and improve this matchless tragedy. Happily his version was so indifferently received that he never ventured to print it. Some of his ideas are quite unobjectionable, such as the different division into acts of the play; while one was distinctly good, namely, the restoration of the fourth scene of act iv. between Fortinbras and Hamlet. The chief alterations he made were in the last act, from which he excised bodily the Gravediggers and Osric. The Queen was not poisoned on the stage, but was led from her seat in a supposed state of insanity brought on by remorse; the King, when attacked by Hamlet, draws his sword and defends himself, and is killed in the struggle. Tate Wilkinson, unable to get a copy of Garrick's alteration, arranged a version for himself, which he published in his Wandering Patentee. In this he inserted passages from other plays of Shakespeare, putting into the mouth of the King the dying speech of Cardinal Beaufort from II. Henry VI. iii. 3. 8-18. He also saved the life of Laertes. Garrick's version was played at Drury Lane up to April 21st, 1780, when, for the benefit of Bannister, jun., "Hamlet as written by Shakespeare" was produced. After this, Garrick's version never seems to have been acted. Hamlet could not certainly have been among Jack Bannister's best characters; but, nevertheless, he did good service in restoring Shakespeare's play to the stage. Henderson, who next to Barry was the most powerful rival against whom Garrick had to contend, made his first appearance as Hamlet at Drury Lane, September 30th, 1777; among the cast being Palmer as the Ghost, Farren as Horatio, and Mrs. Mary Robinson (Perdita) as Ophelia. He had made his original début, anonymously, in this character at Bath on October 6th, 1772. His physical dis qualifications for the part were many, his fencing being one of his weakest points; but in the delivery of some of the soliloquies, and in the scene with the Players, he was inferior to none of his great rivals. A mere enumeration of the many actors who played Hamlet in London alone would occupy a considerable space; while pages might be filled with criticisms of the stately John Kemble, the scholarly Young, and the passionate Edmund Kean, whose scene with Ophelia was so infinitely touching. G. F. Cooke failed completely in Hamlet, and is said to have taken the failure much to heart. Charles Kemble looked the Prince completely, but Hamlet was not one of his greatest successes. Mrs. Siddons played the part some five or six times, but only in the country; she did not venture on the experiment in London. She is by no means the only actress who has assayed the part. Charlotte Cushman played it a few times in America, and alludes to it in her letters as the very highest effort she had ever made; and Miss Marriott played Hamlet more than once in London, at Sadler's Wells and elsewhere. Some critics have tried to prove that Hamlet really was a woman; and perhaps a female Hamlet may be less unsatisfactory than a female Romeo. Macready, Phelps, Charles Kean, and numerous other actors distinguished themselves, more or less, as Hamlet in the first half of this century. The most sensational Hamlet within my recollection, in some points at least, was the late Charles Fechter, whose performance was certainly full of charm; and when we consider the great difficulties that he had to overcome, we cannot but admit that, coming from a Frenchman, it was one of the greatest tributes to the genius of Shakespeare which has been given in our time. This character has always had the strongest fascination for foreign actors. Some persons, laudatores temporis acti, have told me that Devrient was the greatest Hamlet they ever saw. Rouvier was seen to little advantage at the St. James's Theatre as Hamlet. Most of the theatre-goers nowadays can remember Salvini and Ernesto Rossi as the Prince of Denmark. The former made no such strong impression in this part as he did in Othello and Lear. His translation of the play was very indifferent; but his scene with Ophelia was full of tenderness, and his business in the fencing scene with Laertes was perhaps the best ever introduced. Rossi had made a great study of the text of Hamlet; and to the no small confusion of some of the critics, who knew Shakespeare best through the acting editions, he restored that singular passage at the end of the third act, by which, for some mysterious reason or other, Shakespeare tried to spoil one of the finest scenes in the play. Quite recently we have had a robust French Hamlet in Mounet Sully. Mr. Wilson Barrett is one of the latest exponents of the part; and he may be said to represent the modern school of elocution, which, in its desire to protest against the abuse of the art of pausing, tends, perhaps, to the other extreme of too rapid delivery. In conclusion, I may be allowed to say, without any undue desire to exalt my co-editor above his fellow-artists, that no greater tribute to the intrinsic power which Hamlet possesses over an audience has ever been shown, than in the wonderfully long run which this play had, when first produced by him at the Lyceum (October 30th, 1874), without any adventitious advantages of scenery, and with a cast in some respects not particularly strong. Since then it has been revived with every advantage that beautiful scenic accessories could give, but with scarcely greater success than it had for the two hundred consecutive nights when it was represented, in its unadorned state. Mr. Irving's Hamlet commands the profound admiration and appreciative study of scholars and the public, and Miss Terry's Ophelia may be pronounced ideal and divine. What is believed to have been the first representation in America of Hamlet was, in spite of Quaker opposition, given in Philadelphia, 27th July, 1759, by the company under the management of Douglass. The cast, so far as it can be traced, was as follows: |