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This play, notwithstanding some circumstances which seem to assign an earlier date to it, was written, if my conjecture be well founded, in 1600. See an Attempt to ascertain the Order of his Plays. MALONE.

There has lately been produced an edition of this play of the year 1603. As to its date, or the time, at which it was written, it appears from Mr. Malone's Attempt at Chronological Order, &c. in Johnson and Steevens' editions of 1778 and 1803, and 1813, that he conjectured it to have been written in 1596; while Chalmers assigned it to 1597: but in his Life of our Author, 1821, he conjectures it to have been written in 1600: and he again prints the whole of the plays according to the new conceptions he had formed, though many of them varied no less than eight or nine years from his previous computation.

Now if upon such grounds and so unsettled a state of things, editors not even agreeing with themselves, the order, in which these dramas are presented to the public, is to undergo a change on every republication, the confusion will be endless.

With the reader and the public it must be an object to have ready and certain means of reference to the leading passages of a great author: and it thence seems highly desirable, that there should be some settled or understood course, by which at all times in one form the dramas of Shakespeare should be presented. As the time when they were respectively brought upon the stage or first committed to the press, must now be mere matter of conjecture, and is indeed by all late editors stated so to be, no course seems to be in any respect so well adapted to this end, as that of his contemporary editors, trustees and brothers of the craft. The principle too of their distribution into the three classes of Comedy, History and Tragedy, of each of which there is nearly an equal portion, at the same time that it is most natural and commodious, is more likely to be, as to these classes respectively, chronologically correct than any thing that modern research, as judicious as indefatigable, can effect. At present there are no means for an amateur or student to refer to any volume or page quoted without stating the edition; and the editions are numberless: few readers have many, and none have all.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Claudius, King of Denmark.

Hamlet, son to the former, and nephew to the *

sent King.

Polonius, Lord Chamberlain.

pre

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Francisco, a soldier.

Reynoldo, servant to Polonius.
A Captain. An Ambassador.
Ghost of Hamlet's father.
Fortinbras, Prince of Norway.

Gertrude, Queen of Denmark, and mother of Hamlet.
Ophelia, daughter of Polonius.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Players, Gravediggers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Attendants.

SCENE, Elsinore.

* i. e. Amleth: the h being transferred from the end to the beginning of the name.

STEEVENS.

HAMLET,

PRINCE OF DENMARK.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Elsinore. A Platform before the Castle.

FRANCISCO on his Post. Enter to him BARNARDO.

BAR. Who's there?

FRAN. Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold Yourself.

BAR. Long live the king!"

FRAN.

BAR.

Barnardo?

He.

FRAN. You come most carefully upon your hour. BAR. 'Tis now struck twelve;(1) get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRAN. For this relief, much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart.

BAR. Have you had quiet guard?

FRAN.

Not a mouse stirring.

a me] i. e. me who am already on the watch, and have a right

to demand the watch-word. STEEVENS.

b unfold] i. e. announce, make known.

Long live, &c.] The watch-word.

* stand ho! 4tos.

BAR. Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch,(2) bid them make haste.

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

FRAN. I think, I hear them.-Stand!* Who is there?

HOR. Friends to this ground.

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+ HOR.

4tos. but

MAR. 4to. 1603.

Tut. 4to. 1603.

BAR. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Mar

cellus.

MAR. What, has this thing appear'd again tonight?

BAR. I have seen nothing.

MAR. Horatio says, 'tis but our fantasy;
And will not let belief take hold of him,

Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us :
Therefore I have entreated him along

With us, to watch the minutes of this night;(5)
That, if again this apparition come,

a

He may approve our eyes, and speak to it.
HOR. Tush! tush! 'twill not appear.
BAR.

Sit down awhile;

And let us once again assail your ears,

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Approve our eyes] "To approove or confirme. Ratum habere aliquid." Baret's Alvearie, Fo. 1580.

Approves the common liar." Ant. & Cl. I. 1. Dem.

See Two G. of V. V. 4. Prot.

That are so fortified against our story,

What we two nights have seen.

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And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.

BAR. Last night of all,

1

When yon same star, that's westward from the pole,
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,
The bell then beating one,-

MAR. Peace, break thee off; look, where it
comes again!

Enter Ghost.

BAR. In the same figure, like the king that's dead.
MAR. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.(6)
BAR. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
HOR. Most like:-it harrows me with fear, and⚫ horrows.
wonder.(7)

BAR. It would be spoke to.
MAR.

4tos. horrors. 4to. 1603.

Question+ it, Horatio. + speak to. HOR. What art thou, that usurp'st this time of

night,b

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee,
speak.

MAR. It is offended.

against our story,

What we two nights have seen] In grammar the two words story and what are put in apposition; and mean that story, the account or relation which we gave or made of the spectacle seen, etc. etc. Otherwise, with must be understood before what, and the second line be thrown into a parenthesis: but, as above interpreted, it is the natural and familiar, old English, dialogue language.

b Usurp'st this time of night] i. e. abuses, uses against right, and the order of things. "He but usurp'd his life;" i. e. has occupied it beyond, and out of its season. End of Lear. Kent.

4tos.

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