But in the first note on Mr. Malone's posthumous Life of Shakespeare 1821, it is said, that the fact of "illiterate persons, who spelt by the ear, having written Shakspere or Shackspere is decisive proof of his name having been so pronounced." We would on the contrary ask, whether it is not something more like conclusive evidence on more than this point, that all literate persons, all men of condition or education and authors both wrote and printed, and down to our times, pronounced it Shakespeare; and that therefore such must have been the only just pronunciation and spelling?

Then as to the spelling, while, in a note, the Author of the Life asserts, that Shakespeare properly, if not always, wrote his name in one way, Shakspeare, almost the whole of the note is occupied in exemplifying the constant usage of spelling proper names in various ways; and he even instances Heminge and Condel varying the spelling of their own names in that folio of theirs, in which they uniformly print the name of Shakespeare, as he himself and the authors his contemporaries, printed it, in one way, Shakespeare or Shake-speare.

Large allowance ought to be made for adherence to a favourite system, or imagined discovery by a laborious and useful writer; but, though we might overlook his having, throughout his edition of 1821,

falsified every contemporary author, and even public documents, wherein the name of Shakespeare came in his way, and this too in quotation (a license neither just or any way to be tolerated) we hardly expected to find even the subscription of our Author's name to two different dedications, formally addressed to his great patron, the Earl of Southampton, falsified in the reprint of them in the above edition, and Shakspeare therein substituted for Shakespeare.

By such course to what extent may not a reader be misled? There is no object for which it can be warranted; and of one of the only two works published by the Author himself (Venus and Adonis, 4to. 1594) there do not exist five copies to afford detection.

We shall add that in a Collection of Poems by Robert Chester, 1601, our Author's Sonnet

"Let the bird of loudest lay"

is given by him, subscribed in large capitals and with an hyphen,

WILLIAM SHAKE-SPEARE.

In his note Mr. Malone suppresses this fact; but tells us the principal authors associated with Shakspeare are B. Jonson, &c. Supplem. to Johns. and Steev. Shaksp. 8vo. 1780. II. 733. It is also so given

in the epistle prefixed to Poems by a Printer, 1604. Douce's Illust. II. 265, as it is in I. Heywood's Hierarchie of Angels, fo. 1635, p. 265. " Mellifluous Shake-speare."

This then is a most uncalled for and certainly not very "mellifluous" innovation: but it is not its harshness and dissonance that is most offensive; it

is the injury done to all confidence in the transmission of the terms of any document. The course is as unwarrantable, as in the case of quotation it is altogether unprecedented. If such landmarks may be thus silently removed or falsified, what assurance can posterity have in any thing delivered down?

The letters O. C. i. e. old copies, in the margin always signify the quartos, and the folio of 1623; and generally, but not necessarily, that of 1632.

The additions from the quartos are put within brackets.

October, 1832.

HAMLET.

B

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

THE original story on which this play is built, may be found in Saxo Grammaticus, the Danish historian. From thence Belleforest adopted it in his collection of novels, in seven volumes, which he began in 1564, and continued to publish through succeeding years. From this work, The Hystorie of Hamblett, quarto, bl. 1. was translated. I have hitherto met with no earlier edition of the play than one in the year 1604, though it must have been performed before that time.

In the books of the Stationers' Company, this play was entered by James Roberts, July 26, 1602, under the title of "A booke called The Revenge of Hamlett, Prince of Denmarke, as it was lately acted by the Lord Chamberlain his servantes."

The frequent allusions of contemporary authors to this play sufficiently show its popularity. Thus, in Decker's Bel-man's Night-walkes, 4to. 1612, we have-" But if any mad Hamlet, hearing this, smell villainie, and rush in by violence to see what the tawny diueils [gypsies] are dooing, then they excuse the fact," &c. Again, in an old collection of Satirical Poems, called the Night-Raven, is this couplet :

"I will not cry Hamlet, Revenge my greeves,

"But I will call Hangman, Revenge on thieves."

As to the date of this drama, see Dr. Farmer's Essay, p. 85, 86, second edition :

"Greene, in the Epistle prefixed to his Arcadia, hath a lash at some 'vaine glorious tragedians,' and very plainly at Shakspeare in particular. I leave all these to the mercy of their mother-tongue, that feed on nought but the crums that fall from the translators trencher.-That could scarcely latinize their neck verse if they should have neede, yet English Seneca, read by candlelight yeelds many good sentences-hee will afford you whole Hamlets, I should say, handfuls of tragicall speeches.'-I cannot determine exactly when this Epistle was first published; but, I fancy, it will carry the original Hamlet somewhat further back than we have hitherto done: and it may be observed, that the oldest copy now extant, [the quarto 1604] is said to be enlarged to almost as much againe as it was.' STEEVENS.

A play on this subject, I believe by Thomas Kyd, had been exhibited before the year 1589; on which, and on the bl. 1. Historie of Hamblet, this tragedy was, I conjecture, constructed. The prose-narrative I have seen, was printed in 1608, but it undoubtedly was a republication.