It was while he sat there, that the player who did not write his speeches, said—

Hamlet. My lord, you played once in the university, you say?
Polonius. That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.
Hamlet. And what did you enact?

Polonius. I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i' the Capitol ; Brutus killed me.

Hamlet. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.— Be the players ready?

Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ, and the liberty. These are the only men.

Hamlet. Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

Guild. O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

Hamlet. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

Guild. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony: I have not the SKILL.

Hamlet. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of ME? You would play upon ME; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of MY MYSTERY; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my key; and there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood! do you think I AM EASIER TO BE PLAYED ON THAN A PIPE? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot PLAY upon me.

Hamlet. Why did you laugh when I said, Man delights not me?

Guild. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment THE PLAYERS shall receive from you. We coted them on the way, and thither are they coming to offer you — SERVICE.

THE

PHILOSOPHY

OF

THE PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE

UNFOLDED.

BOOK I.

THE ELIZABETHAN ART OF TRADITION.

PART I.

MICHAEL DE MONTAIGNE'S 'PRIVATE AND

RETIRED ARTS.'

And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlaces and with assays of bias,

By indirections, find directions out;
So by my former lecture and advice,
Shall
you, my son.-Hamlet.

CHAPTER I.

ASCENT FROM PARTICULARS TO THE HIGHEST PARTS OF SCIENCES,' BY THE ENIGMATIC METHOD ILLUSTRATED. Single, I'll resolve you.- Tempest.

THE

Observe his inclination in yourself. - Hamlet.

For ciphers, they are commonly in letters, but may be in words.

Advancement of Learning.

HE fact that a Science of Practice, not limited to Physics and the Arts based on the knowledge of physical laws, but covering the whole ground of the human activity, and limited only by the want and faculty of man, required, in the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First, some special and profoundly artistic methods of delivery and tradition,' would not appear to need much demonstration to one acquainted with the peculiar features of that particular crisis in the history of the English nation.

And certainly any one at all informed in regard to the condition of the world at the time in which this science, — which is the new practical science of the modern ages,-makes its first appearance in history, -any one who knows what kind of a public opinion, what amount of intelligence in the common

B