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 Player King are singularly flowing and musical; and their sacrifice shows us how inexorable was his judgement. [See Q,, lines 1274-1279.] 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,- But, as I have a soul, I swear by heaven, I never knew of this most horrid murder.' And Hamlet, upon this declaration, says,— And, mother, but assist me in revenge, And in his death your infamy shall die.' The Queen, upon this, protests—'I will conceal, consent, and do my best, What stratagem soe'er thou shalt devise.' In the amended copy the Queen merely 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 madness of Ophelia is beautifully elaborated in the amended copy, but all her snatches of songs are the same in both editions. What she sings, however, in the First Scene of the original copy is with great art transposed to the Second Scene of the amended one. The pathos of—' And will he not come again?' is doubled, as it now stands, by the presence of Laertes. We are now arrived at a scene in the Quarto of 1603 altogether different from anything we find in the amended copy. It is a short scene between Horatio and the Queen, in which Horatio relates Hamlet's return to Denmark, and describes the treason which the King had plotted against him, as well as the mode by which he had evaded it by the sacrifice of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The Queen, with reference to the subtle treason that the King had plotted,' says: 'Then I per ceive there's treason in his looks,' &c. [See Q,, lines 1756-1759.] 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 judgement. 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 form with her and Horatio no plans of revenge. The story of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is told in six lines. [See Q,, 1773-1778.] The expansion of this simple passage into the exquisite narrative of Hamlet to Horatio of the same circumstances presents, to our minds, a most remarkable example of the difference between the mature and the youthful intellect. The scene of the Grave-digger, in the original copy, has all the great points of the present scene. The frenzy of Hamlet at the grave is also the same. Who but the poet himself could have worked up this line- Anon, as mild and gentle as a dove,' into- Anon, as patient as the female dove, When that her golden couplets are disclosed, His silence will sit drooping.'? 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 [sic in Knight's last edition]. • ... We must express our decided opinion, grounded upon an attentive comparison of the original sketch with the 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 as 1600, which we believe it does, the essential differences between the sketch and the perfect play,-differences which do not depend VOL. II.-2 upon the corruption of a text,-can only be accounted for upon the belief that there was a considerable interval between the productions of the first and second copy, in which the author's power and judgement 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. . . . . In proof that Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakspere's early plays, Hallam points out the want of that thoughtful philosophy which, when once it had germinated in Shakspere's mind, never ceased to display itself.' The Hamlet of 1604 is full of this thoughtfull philosophy.' But the original sketch, as given in Q,, exhibits few traces of it in the form of didactic observations. Note the following passages which are not there found: For nature crescent,' &c., I, iii, 11; This heavy-headed revel,' &c., I, iv, 17; There is nothing, either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,' &c., II, ii, 244; 'I could be bounded in a nutshell,' &c., II, ii, 249; Bring me to the test,' &c., III, iv, 142; I see a cherub,' &c., IV, iii, 47; Nature is fine in love,' &c., IV, v, 157; 'There's a divinity,' &c., V, ii, 10. Further, the plays which belong to the beginning of the seventeenth century, as Hallam points out, indicate a censuring of mankind. If, then, this quality be not found in the original sketch of Hamlet, we may refer that sketch to an earlier period. It is remarkable that in this sketch the misanthropy, if so it may be called, of Hamlet can scarcely be traced; his feelings have altogether reference to his personal griefs and doubts. The first Hamlet was, we think, written when this bitter remembrance,' whatever it was, had no place in his heart. Note the following passages, which indicate these morbid feelings, which are wanting in Q,: How weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable,' &c., I, ii, 133; Denmark's a prison,' &c., II, ii, 239; ‘I have of late. . . . lost all my mirth,' &c., II, ii, 288. The soliloquy, 'To be, or not to be,' &c., where the outpourings of a wounded spirit are generalized in the Q,, III, i, 56; Absent thee from felicity awhile,' &c., V, ii, 334, 335. These examples are sufficient, we think, to show that we have internal evidence that the original sketch and the augmented and perfect copy of Hamlet were written under different influences and habits of thought. [The argument against the early composition of Hamlet, derived from the negative testimony of Francis Meres, who in 1598 mentioned twelve plays of Shakespeare's, among which Hamlet is not named, Knight (Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays) opposes by contending that Meres's list is not to be supposed to be complete. The expression which Meres uses, "for comedy witness," implies that he selects particular examples of excellence.'] Thus far Knight. No one, I think, can deny that his remarks are shrewd and forcible. A writer in THE EDINBURGH REVIEW (April, 1845, vol. lxxxi, p. 378) maintains the same views, as follows: The reason of the thing has long made it be admitted as probable that Shakespeare's activity as an original dramatist must have commenced much sooner than the dates commonly assigned to the oldest of his works in the received copies. . . . . In these circumstances we find that a play named Hamlet, and described by marks tending to establish (though not decisively establishing) its identity with a play of Shakespeare's is mentioned as existing in 1587, or the poet's twenty-fifth year [sic]; and that similar notices occur in 1594 and 1596. We are thus entitled to assume it as probable that Hamlet did exist, in one shape or another, from the oldest of those dates. If any of us still have difficulty in believing that this drama, as we possess it in its complete form,-the most deeply contemplative of all its author's works,— could have come into being as an effusion of his earliest manhood, there is now at hand the hypothesis,-rendered plausible by what we know in regard to other works of his,―that, as first composed, Hamlet may have been not inconsiderably unlike what it is in the shape best known to us. So far we are entitled to proceed without knowing that any edition exists which throws more light on the question. When we open the Quarto of 1603, the conjectures previously formed become certainties. Though we had otherwise no reason to suspect that Hamlet had existed in a different shape before its publication in 1604, we should at once perceive that it had done so; and that the edition of 1603, notwithstanding the imperfections and blunders which make it perhaps the very worst of all the badly printed plays of the time, does yet present no unsatisfactory representation of the state and peculiarities of the work in its earlier form. Afterwards, taking again into account the external circumstances, we find them to square, as exactly as could be expected, with the internal evidence afforded by a comparison of the editions. In short, we have no difficulty in believing that Q, gives us, although with provoking imperfections and corruptions, a form of the work older by a good many years than that in which we have been accustomed to study it,- -a form exhibiting such dissimilarities from the later one, as indicate not obscurely the progress of the poet's mind, from the unripe fervor of early manhood to the calmer and more philosophic inspiration of perfect maturity. [Page 380.] In other words, the older Play evolves but partially either of the elements of the Prince's contemplative character,-the philosophic and the poetic,-those deep and fine touches of a moody and cheerless yet noble philosophy,—those dazzling flashes of imaginative light which make all that is around them blaze up with reflected splendor. But it wants more of the philosophy than of the poetry. Although the story, as Knight has appositely observed, does really, when we reflect upon its accumulation of revolting and bloody incidents, present an aspect which throws it back into the school of Titus Andronicus; although it is one which, perhaps, Shakespeare would not in later years have selected, in its full mass of horror at least, as a fit subject for genuine tragedy; yet, even in the earliest form in which we possess the drama, we perceive the theme to have been idealized by the high working of a great poetic mind. Thus, in the First Act, which puts in representation the most imaginative features of the idea, there is not in the most prominent parts a material difference between the two editions. The mighty conception had arisen in the young poet's imagination with full and ripe distinctness; and that rich strength of words and of illustrative images, that bright array of lights and shades caught from external nature and reflected back upon the poetic heart, that early ease and felicity which he had proved in his youthful lyrics and descriptive verses, here enabled him to bestow on the induction of his drama a development to which subsequent changes in his own mind qualified him to add but little. The Ghost scenes receive only some additional polishing and a few additional strokes of imagery. It is in the minor scenes,-the scene at court, and the interview of Corambis (the Polonius of the old play) with his two children,—that the material changes occur. In them there is a remodelling of almost everything. Even in the First Act, however, there are not a few instances which would exemplify well the gradual progress by which the character of Hamlet reached its full complement of representation. His first soliloquy, although glaringly misprinted in the older copy, is as apt an illustration as any. In subsequent parts of the play, Shakespeare's views are perceived to have changed in many most important respects during the interval between the two copies. Much of this is seen in the elaboration of particular passages, of which specimens are given by Knight. Much of it will be seen, also, on an intelligent and patient analysis, in those transpositions which some crities would charge altogether to the account of the copyists. One of these may be noticed as illustrative of those broader conceptions of his art,-of that increase of gentleness and calmness, and of that addiction to gradual preparation for startling and violent scenes of passion,-which were taught to the poet by increased experience in thought and in dramatic composition. A whole scene is transposed; the famous interview with Ophelia, where he madly reproaches and reviles her, a scene whose harshness may not always be perceived in the closet, but from which, in acting, no skill has been able, unless by a gross violation of the text and meaning of the author, to remove an impression approaching to actual pain. Let us recollect the place which this scene, so unharmonious in its palpable effect, holds in the drama. Let us recollect, also, how we are prepared for its approach. In the play, as we have it in the newer edition, Hamlet's assumed madness is announced by degrees. First comes Ophelia to describe that pitiful act in which he had seemed to bid her an everlasting farewell. Then the King talks of Hamlet's 'transformation,' and sets the court-sponges to suck out the heart of his secret; and Polonius reasons wisely, like many other wise men, from false premises. After this, Hamlet himself enters, reading; and next ensues that most characteristic dialogue with Polonius, and afterwards with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, in which there alternate deep scorn, wild and aimless taunting, majestic imagination, and philosophic thought, and that unspeakably profound pathos, that hopeless sinking of the heart, which, recurring with increasing frequency as the drama proceeds, makes us feel more and more keenly that, after all, the Prince's madness was not wholly put on, that the struggle of his intellect with his will had truly shaken the foundations upon which reason builds her seat. Afterwards come the Players; and when they have departed, the Prince bursts out into that terrific outbreak of passion, of self-reproach, of self-contempt, of grief, of hatred, and, finally, of determined revenge, which concentrates his whole history, and an abstract of his whole character, within the compass of less than a hundred lines. Thus, in the altered play, closes Act Second; and it is only at the opening of the Third that we find the scene with Ophelia. The scene But all this was originally managed by the poet in a different manner. with Ophelia was inserted long before in all its harshness; nay, with an abruptness bringing it somewhat closer to the scene in the original Novel,-that coarse and mean model from which, for this as for much else, so very many things were borrowed. In the sketch the scene comes immediately after the wise reasonings of Polonius; and, introduced by the soliloquy, 'To be, or not to be,' it is Hamlet's first appearance since his interview with his father's spirit. The rough outline of the fine dialogue with Polonius and the two sponges immediately follows it. This was what Shakespeare planned when he first wrote the play; we know what he did when he came to revise it. The change may be regarded in several lights. It may be thought of as bringing out the strong scene with Ophelia, after more gradual and complete preparation,-as thus at once softening the seeming sternness of the scene itself, and developing Hamlet's character, both as it was and as it seemed, with a more effective climax. Or it may be thought of in a higher view, as an expedient bearing upon the harmonious arrangement of the Play as a whole,—as enabling the imagination to contemplate the dramatic panorama more easily, and the sympathy to flow more quickly and smoothly with the current of the emotion. It may be thought of as infusing greater breadth and simplicity, and a stronger degree of contrast, into the masses into which the drama naturally falls. According to the old arrangement, there was in some measure a frittering away of strength,-a dividing of efforts which would have been better made in unison. The energetic passion of the scene with Ophelia breaks out suddenly and passes away without effect. The remainder of the Act is in a key far less passionate. And, again, when we come to the Third Act the vehemence of the play-scene breaks out with equal unexpectedness. Take the altered shape of the drama. How differently does everything now proceed! The Second Act is now an uninterrupted series of scenes, marked by repose; a broad mass of light on the picture, with heavy shadows on this side and on that. The mind of the Prince, the minds of all who stand about him, are for a time quiescent, brooding, expectant. And then, in the Third Act, of which the transposed scene is the opening, comes the convulsion, shock after shock;-the wild insults heaped upon Ophelia,—the suppressed suspicion which begins the play-scene,--the mad jubilee of revenge and hate which reigns in its close,-the vainly remorseful prayer of the murderer, with Hamlet's fiendish paroxysm of cool malice as he watches him on his knees (one of the most significant touches in the whole piece),--and, last of all, the fiery haste and terrible impressiveness of the scene in the Queen's chamber, which contains the slaughter of Polonius, the fearfully earnest reproof administered to the guilty mother, the apparition of the murdered father, awful and portentous. The most eminent followers of Knight, although differing from him somewhat in minor details, are DELIUS, ELZE, STAUNTON, and DYCE, and their views will be set forth briefly before the arguments of the other side are given. It is well to remember the point under discussion: whether, making a full allowance for a certain percentage of typographical errors, the differences between Q, and Q, are due to a remodelling of the play by Shakespeare, or merely to the very imperfect transcript from which Q, was printed. KNIGHT may be considered as the chiefest advocate of the former theory, COLLIER the earliest of the latter. DELIUS agrees with Knight in so far as that the variation between Q, and Q, is apparently too great to be wholly explained on Collier's hypothesis. After eliminating all the sources of corruption which Collier enumerates, there still remain differences between the two texts which can be attributed to the poet and to the poet alone, e. g. the change of names; the transposition of scenes; rhymed verses which no piratical printer would or could make; and, finally, the scene between the Queen and Horatio must have been Shakespeare's work. Knight does not seem to have given due weight to the corruption which Q, received at the unskilful hands of the printers. As Q, now stands, Shakespeare never wrote it, with all its omissions, abbreviations, and sophistications. If the old tragedy of which we have traces were not a youthful production of Shakespeare's, it is very possible that he drew largely from it for his own tragedy. Robertes was probably hindered from publishing the edition for which he took out a license by the unwillingness of the actors to permit the public to see the Play in any other way than on the stage. But as the interest of the |