Gil. Yfaith my Lord, noueltie carries it away, Ham. I doe not greatly wonder of it, &c. Lines 330-351 are omitted, as they are in the other quartos, which have simply, Ham. How chances it they trauaile? their residence both in reputation, and profit was better both wayes. Ros. I thinke their inhibition, comes by the meanes of the late innouasion. Ham. Doe they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the Citty; are they so followed. Ros. No indeede are they not. Ham. It is not very strange, &c. In the earlier play the tragedians are driven to strolling because the public taste was in favour of the private plays and the acting of children; in the later, they are represented as being prohibited from acting in consequence of what is darkly called an 'innovation.' Both these causes are combined in the play as it stands in the folios, where the 'inhibition' and the 6 'aery of children' are introduced to account for the tragedians having forsaken the city. Steevens explains the 'inhibition' in this way: 'their permission to act any longer at an established house is taken away, in consequence of the new custom of introducing personal abuse into their comedies,' and then asserts that 'several companies of actors in the time of our author were silenced on account of this licentious practice.' But it is not clear that this is the reference intended. For a very long period there had been a strong opposition in the city to theatrical performances. In March 1573-4 the Lord Mayor and corporation declined to license a place for them within the city. In 1575 players were again forbidden to act there, and in consequence, in 1576 the Blackfriars Theatre was built without the limits of the jurisdiction of the city. In 1581 the Lord Mayor was ordered to allow performances in the city by certain companies of actors on week days only, being holidays, but his inhibition must have remained still in force, because in the following year, 1582, the Lords of the Council pray the Lord Mayor to revoke his inhibition agains playing on holidays. In 1589 Lord Burleigh appears to hav directed the Lord Mayor to silence the players of the Lord Admiral's and the Lord Strange's companies for introducing matters of state and religion upon the stage. To this appar ently Nash alludes in his Return of the renowned Cavalier Pasquile of England, published in 1589. In this year also. proposals were made to appoint two commisioners to act with the Master of the Revels for the purpose of examining and licensing every play, and so restraining the abuses of the actors. About the year 1590 the children of St. Paul's were silenced, and the interdict was apparently not removed till about 1600. In 1597 the Lord Admiral's players were restrained for a time from playing in consequence of having brought out Nash's Isle of Dogs, a play in which personal satire was probably introduced, and for which the author was imprisoned. In 1601 a letter was addressed by the Lords of the Council to certain Justices of the Peace in the county of Middlesex in which the actors at the Curtain Theatre, Shoreditch, are charged with satirizing living persons and introducing personalities into their plays. It is difficult therefore to see at what precise period the explanation offered by Steevens could be true. In 1604 the indulgence of the actors in personal abuse could hardly be called an 'innovation'; on the contrary, it was a practice from which the stage had never been entirely free. If we were to add to the conjectures upon this point we should be disposed to suggest that the 'innovation' referred to was the license which had been given on 30 Jan. 1603–4 to the children of the Queen's Revels to play at the Blackfriars Theatre and other convenient places. The Blackfriars Theatre belonged to the company of which Shakespeare was a member, formerly the Lord Chamberlain's and at this time His Majesty's servants. The popularity of the children may well have driven the older actors into the country and so have operated as an 'inhibition,' though in the strict sense of the word no formal 'inhibition' was issued. If by 'inhibition' Shakespeare merely meant, as we think most probable, that the actors were practically thrown out of employment, it seems also likely that by 'innovation' he meant the authority given to 12 the children to act at the regularly licensed theatres. It must be borne in mind, in reference to this, that nothing is said either of inhibition' or 'innovation' in 1603, but that the a sentence containing both is first introduced in 1604. It is to the interval therefore that we must look for the explanation. In offering this conjecture we have not lost sight of the fact i that after all, remembering how chary Shakespeare is of contemporary allusions, no special occurrence may be hinted at, although in what follows in the folio edition, a satire upon the children's performances was clearly intended. In Chalmers' Farther Account of the Early English Stage (Shakespeare, ed. Boswell, iii. 423–429) will be found a list of payments, at sundry times during the reign of Elizabeth, to the children of Paul's, Westminster, Windsor, and the Chapel Royal, and an enumeration of the plays performed by them i and by the children of the Revels from 1571 to 1633. Most if not all of Lyly's plays were acted by the children of Paul's; Marlowe's Dido, Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revels and Poetaster by the children of the Chapel; and Marston's Antonio and Mellida, and Antonio's Revenge by the children of Paul's. It is with reference to these performances by the children that a quotation has been frequently given from Heywood's Apology for Actors (1612) for the purpose of throwing light upon this passage of Shakespeare. It shows indeed that the children indulged in personalities, but not that any 'inhibition' was the consequence. Besides, it refers to a subsequent date. 'Now to speake of some abuse lately crept into the quality, as an inueighing against the State, the Court, the Law, the Citty, and their gouernements, with the particularizing of priuate mens humors (yet alive) Noble-men & others. I know it distastes many; neither do I any way approue it, nor dare I by any meanes excuse it. The liberty which some arrogate to themselues, committing their bitternesse, and liberall inuectiues against all estates, to the mouthes of Children, supposing their iuniority to be a priuiledge for any rayling, be it neuer so violent, I could aduise all such, to curbe and limit this presumed liberty within the bands of discretion and gouernment. But wise and iuditial Censurers, before whom such complaints shall at any time hereafter come, wil not (I hope) impute these abuses to any transgression in vs, who haue euer been carefull and prouident to shun the like.' There is no evidence that the children were inhibited on account of these personalities, and still less that their offences were visited upon the heads of the older players. Indeed, Heywood's language implies the contrary. So much has been written on the character of Hamlet" and on the action of the play that it is impossible here to discuss the merits of such various criticisms. But we give one, which whether or not in all respects adequate, is at any any rate most suggestive. Goethe, in the fourth book of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, chapter xiii. (Carlyle's translation), thus gives his estimate of the hero of the tragedy. 'To me it is clear that Shakespeare meant, in the present case, to represent the effects of a great action laid upon a soul ́unfit for the performance of it. In this view the whole piece seems to me composed. There is an oak-tree planted in a costly jar, which should have borne only pleasant flowers in its bosom; the roots expand, the jar is shivered. A lovely, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which forms a hero, sinks beneath a burden which it cannot bear, and must not cast away. All duties are holy for him; the present is too hard. Impossibilities have been required of him; not in themselves impossibilities, but such for him. He winds, and turns, and torments himself; he advances and recoils; is ever put in mind, ever puts himself in mind; at last does all but lose his purpose from his thoughts; yet still without recovering his peace of mind.' But Goethe does not recognise the reality of Hamlet's madness, which has formed the subject of special investigation by several writers, among others by Dr. Conolly and Sir Edward Strachey. CAMBRIDGE, December, 1871. W. G. C. W. A. W. SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle. FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO. Bernardo. Who's there? Francisco. Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself. Bernardo. Long live the king! Francisco. Bernardo? Bernardo. He. Francisco. You come most carefully upon your hour. Ber. 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco. Francisco. For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart. Bernardo. Have you had quiet guard? Francisco. Not a mouse stirring. B |