DRAMATIC MISCELLANIES. Hamlet. CHAPTER XXXV. Obligations of the public to Mr. Stephens and Mr. Malone. The time, when Hamlet was firft acted, not certainly authenticated.-Shakspeare's frequent additions to thofe plays be valued.-Hamlet, first play of Shakspeare acted at the duke's theatre.Popularity of Hamlet.-Francifco and Boheme.-Voltaire's difingenuity.-Rivals of the watch.The word ftomach explained.-A little more than kin, and less than kind.-Too much i'th' fun.A common thought nobly expressed.—Dr. Johnfon fuppofed to be mistaken.-Parallel paffage, in the Supplicants of Efchylus, to the advice of Laertes. Kings of Denmark lovers of Rhenifh.-Their intoxication.-Masque of the Queen of Sheba.A whole Court inebriated.-Dram of bafe.—A paffage rectified with a fmall alteration.-Reverend Mr. Robertfon. -Complete steel.-Beetles o'er his bafe. Confin'd to faft in fires.-Lucian's Dialogue of Menippus, &c.-Juice of cursed Hebenon.-Galen, Diofcorides, Celfus, &c.-Diftracted globe. The first act of Hamlet unequalled. Ghoft of Darius, from Efchylus.-A good lesson for princes.-Dr. Potter and Mr. Rumney.Ghoft of Laius.-Of Ninus, in Semiramis.-La VOL. III. B Claris Clairan, Le Kin, and the property-man.- Difcuffion of the manner of addreffing the Ghoft by Hamlet.-Taylor, Sir W. Davenant, Betterton.Macklin and Henderson.-Colley Cibber and Mr. Addifon.-Booth and Wilks.-Booth's fuperiority in the Ghoft. ALL lovers of Shakspeare are indebted to Mr. Steevens and Mr. Malone, for their diligent refearches into every thing which related to this great man and his family; and more especially to the immortal part of him, his writings. The chronological series of his plays, with large and inftru&tive notes, is a very curious and interefting compofition, in which Mr. Malone has endeavoured to authenticate the order and fix the dates of all the plays written by our great poet. After a moft ftrict examination into the time when Hamlet made its first appearance, Mr. Malone is obliged to leave that circumstance rather undetermined, though he has, with fome degree of probability, placed it to the year 1596. In my opinion, the first sketch of it was brought on the flage more early. In all his pieces, for which he entertained a predile&ion, it is granted he made fuch additions as he thought would advance the credit of the play, and make it more palatable to an audience; and, as no one of his tragedies by confent of history and tradition, was more relifhed, by the inhabitants of this metropolis, than Hamlet, we have no reason to doubt, that he, from time to time, threw in fuch materials as would improve the original stock: fo that the first and last Hamlet might be, in fome refpect, as diffimilar, as Pope's Rape of the Lock, with the fylphs, and the fame poem without them. The The first play of Shakspeare, acted after the Restoration at the duke's theatre, if we may depend on the Narrative of Downs, was Hamlet; the principal character was acted by Betterton, who often exhibited himfelf in this part, at the opening of the theatre, as an infallible lure to draw company. Wilks at Drury-lane, and Ryan at Lincoln's-inn fields, frequently chose this favourite part to open the winter season at these rival playhouses. From the first representation of Hamlet, to the prefent day, we may reasonably conclude, that no dramatic piece whatever has laid hold on the public affection so strongly and been acted fo frequently. Act I. Scene I. FRANCISCO. For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, The right expreffion of a fimple thought is fometimes of confiderable and unexpected confequence to the speaker. Mr. Boheme was about the year 1718, accidently feen by Rich, when playing with fome itinerants at Stratford le Bow, who foon diftinguished him from his companions, and hired him, at a small income, to act at his theatre in Lincoln's-inn fields. I have been told, that this actor was, on his first trial, caft into the trifling part of Francifco. His unaffected, yet feeling, manner, of pronouncing this fhort fpeech, roufed the auditors to an attention of his merit. His falary was immediately increafed by the manager, and he proved afterwards a great ornament of the stage. IDEM. Not a mouse stirring. Voltaire, who, in examining the merit of our author's plays, difdains the use of no unfair method to to depreciate them, has ridiculed this paffage of Hamlet, as if the mention of a mouse were beneath the dignity of tragedy. But could there be a properer mode of defcribing the folitariness which reigned in the place, than by saying that every thing was fo ftill, that the foft tread of a small reptile had not been heard? The infignificance of an object does by no means leffen the general idea. Have not the most celebrated antient dramatic writers admitted thoughts as low, and words more grofs and offenfive, into their best tragedies? How does the nice ear of a Frenchman relish the filthy plafters and nafty rags which Philoctetes applies to his fores? Yet Sophocles understood nature, and the laws of decorum, I prefume, as perfectly as Voltaire. Tirefias's defcription, in Antigone, of the ordure and filth of the ill-omened birds who had fed on the carcass of Polynices, would raise a nausea in the ftomach of a delicate French critic! Men of folid judgment and true tafte defpife fuch refinement. ners. BERNARDO. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, Dr. Warburton will have rivals to mean partBlunt derives the word from rivus, or rivilus, or from men fetching water from a neighbouring river, or rivulet. Hanmer fays, rivals are those men who watch upon an adjoining ground: by this interpretation, they, who are to fucceed Bernardo, must have indeed gone through very hard service, as they were called from one act of duty to another. But, without a learned explanation, it is plain, by ivals, that Shakspeare means, thofe men who ere appointed next to relieve foldiers on the watch. |