' of the highest mountains there, to the lowlier tales of less ambitious 'pilgrims, who have sat on the green and sunny knoll, beneath the 'whispering tree, and by the music of the gentle rivulet.'

Moreover, the present Editor freely acknowledges the great interest he has taken in witnessing the power of SHAKESPEARE'S genius as shown in its stimulating effect upon minds of a high order. In the endeavour to solve the mystery of Hamlet, the human mind, not only in its clear radiance but in the sad twilight of its eclipse, has been subjected to the most searching analysis. This ideal character, Hamlet, has been assumed to be very nature, and if we fail to reach a solution of the problem it presents, the error lies in us and in our analysis; not in SHAKESPEARE. Such have been the revelations of the wisdom and genius of the First of Poets found in the works which attempt to ravel all this matter out, and from which extracts have been made in the second of these volumes, that the present Editor was not long in making up his mind to bear patiently, for the sake of these, the sea of troubles (sign-post criticisms) that he has been compelled to encounter in the prosecution of his work. To appreciate what is beautiful is one thing; to be informed of what it is that delights us is a different and an added pleasure. To vary the language of another: "The worth of [Shakespeare] 'must rise as his grandeurs are comprehended, and our joy in 'his harmony and beauty will be heightened the more fully he is ' understood.

"I grieve not that ripe knowledge takes away

"The charm that [Shakespeare] to my boyhood bore,

For with the insight cometh day by day

'A greater bliss than wonder was before."'

The Editor has availed himself of the liberty to form his own text afforded him by the fact that the texts of all the ancient authoritative editions are virtually printed on the same page. He has followed no other. If his text appears to follow the Cambridge Edition, it is merely because that edition has been used to print from.

It has been his settled principle, as it was that of Dr JOHNSON: 'that the reading of the ancient books is probably true, and there

....

'fore not to be disturbed for the sake of elegance, perspicuity, or 'mere improvement of the sense. For though much credit is not 'due to the fidelity, nor any to the judgement of the first publishers, 'yet they who had the copy before their eyes were more likely to 'read it right than we who read it only by imagination. . . . . My 'first labour is always to turn the old text on every side, and try if 'there be any interstice through which light can find its way. . . . 'I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honourable 'to save a citizen than to kill an enemy, and have been more 'careful to protect than to attack.'

A list of editions collated in the Textual Notes, and an explanation of the abbreviations and symbols there employed will be found at the close of the Appendix.

In the Second Volume is given, first: a Reprint of the Quarto of 1603. This earliest Quarto differs from the rest so materially that a full or intelligible record of its various readings in the form of foot-notes is simply impossible. In a note on The Date and the Text' will be found an account of the different theories respecting its origin.

Then follows The Hystorie of Hamblet, the story on which, perhaps, was founded either this tragedy or the lost original drama which SHAKESPEARE afterward changed to its present shape.

An

After this comes a translation of a curious old German tragedy called Fratricide Punished, or Prince Hamlet of Denmark. account of it will be found in a short prefatory note.

Then come the English Critics, and a discussion of the one great insoluble mystery of Hamlet's sanity. Without for one moment wishing to assume the responsibility of umpire, the present Editor thinks it no more than right to call attention to one fact which it seems to him should be kept in view on entering upon this discussion-viz. where the testimony of experts is invoked, and their testimony is unanimous, the speculations and opinions of others, laymen and inexpert, cannot be expected to carry much weight. In courts of justice, every day, the testimony of experts is accepted in cases involving liberty or confinement, life or death, and we

cannot, it is submitted, be so inconsistent as wholly to rule out that testimony here. If, therefore, we listen to experts at all, we can hardly refuse our assent to their unanimous verdict. Despite all this, the present Editor's opinion, which, after what he has just said, he cannot, as a layman, expect to have any value, and which, in view of the magnitude of the discussion, he would be the last, as an Editor, to set forth at length, is that Hamlet is neither mad, nor pretends to be so. And in view of the fact that he has faithfully read and reported all the arguments on that side, the Editor begs the advocates of the theory of feigned insanity to allow him, out of reciprocal courtesy, to ask how they account for Hamlet's being able, in the flash of time between the vanishing of the Ghost and the coming of Horatio and Marcellus, to form, horrorstruck as he was, a plan for the whole conduct of his future life?

Then follow Notes on The Names and Characters, on the Duration of the Action, on Garrick's Version, and on Actors' Interpretations; it is greatly to be regretted that in this last department our accounts of how great actors spoke are so meagre. As CIBBER says of BETTERTON: Pity it is that the momentary Beauties flowing from an 'harmonious Elocution cannot, like those of Poetry, be their own 'Record: That the animated Graces of the Player can live no 'longer than the instant Breath and Motion that presents them, 'or at best, can but faintly glimmer through the Memory or im'perfect Attestation of a few surviving Spectators. Could how Bet'terton spoke be as easily known as what he spoke, then might you 'see the Muse of Shakespeare in her Triumph, with all her Beau'ties, rising into real Life, and charming the Beholder. But, since 'this is so far out of the reach of description, how shall I show 'you Betterton ?'

Next comes the German Criticism.

With the rashness of ignorance, the present Editor, in laying out his plan for this edition, proposed to himself to preface it with an essay upon the remarkable literature which this great drama has created in Germany. His idea was to give the views of all the writings on Hamlet which have appeared down to the present time in that country,-of a 1, that is, which he could procure. But, in the

work of preparation for such an essay, after going carefully through what, at a rough and moderate computation, amounts to some two thousand pages and upwards, he finds himself,-no surprising discovery, quite unequal to the task. The sense of his incompetency is, however, greatly relieved by the one very clear conviction with which he emerged from the metaphysical atmosphere: the proposed essay, could it be written, would utterly defeat a purpose to be kept religiously in view in the preparation of this edition of Hamlet,namely, compression. It would far exceed in bulk all the rest of the volumes. The Editor therefore must restrict himself to a simple statement of the principles by which he has been guided in the selection of extracts from the German critics.

First: All unfavourable criticism of fellow-critics is excluded as much as possible. Although our German friends are somewhat jealous of their well-deserved reputation as a nation of thinkers, they sometimes seem, individually, very much disposed to grudge one another a share in that distinction. The propriety of the exclusion observed is obvious. To confound GOETHE, SCHLEGEL, or TIECK is one thing, to elucidate SHAKESPEARE is another. It is curious to observe how much of Shakespearian criticism,-and this applies to English as well as German,-is devoted to hostile criticism of fellowcritics, living and dead. It is submitted that this it is, and not 'sign-post criticism' alone, which has tended to bring disrepute on this branch of literature. I know not,' says Dr JOHNSON, 'why 'our editors should with such implacable anger persecute their pre'decessors. O vexpol μǹ dázvovaly, the dead, it is true, can make 'no resistance, they may be attacked with great security; but, since 'they can neither feel nor mend, the safety of mauling them seems 'greater than the pleasure; nor, perhaps, could it much misbecome 'us to remember, amidst our triumphs over the nonsensical and 'senseless, that we likewise are men; that debemur morti, and, as 'Swift observed to Burnet, shall soon be among the dead ourselves.' Second: The selection is confined as closely as possible to one point: the character of Hamlet. It has been hardly possible to observe this rule with absolute strictness. TIECK's theory in regard to Ophelia's relationship to Hamlet bears so intimately upon the cha

racter of both, and has made so deep an impression upon the popular mind, as to demand its insertion here.

Lastly: Whatever has been found that is strikingly original, although not of necessity true, has been included among these extracts; such as the wonderful connection which KARPF imagines he has discovered between the 'courtier's kibe' and Thor's frozen toe, and FLATHE'S opinions concerning the family of Polonius. Of course the reader will not suppose where no bracketed exclamation-marks appear, that all these criticisms or commentaries are adopted by the present Editor; and this remark the Editor wishes most emphatically to apply to all the comments and notes, English and German, throughout these volumes. He has an especial aversion to that cheap and easy way of expressing dissent, or, as it most commonly reads, contempt. He can recall but one instance of its use, and even there it would have been avoided could the structure of the sentence, condensed to save space, have left the paternity of the note unambiguous. Those who read or study these volumes may be safely trusted to dis cover for themselves the wisdom or the folly of the critics, and the Editor gladly forgoes the pleasure of displaying how much wiser he is than those whom he cites.

The endeavour, in all honesty, has been to select from every author the passages wherein he appears to most advantage, and wherein also he contributes his best thought to the elucidation of the great tragedy. At the same time, it must be confessed, there has been a little amusement had, now and then, in citing passages where our admirable friends stumble and fall in the interpretation of words, as when GERTH states that slings (in the 'slings and arrows of outrageous 'fortune') are the cables with which buoys are attached to sunken anchors or are placed to indicate hidden reefs or shoals.

Notwithstanding these trivial deductions, no one who has made. any acquaintance with the labours of Shakespeare students in Germany can fail to be impressed by the excellence they show even in the department of verbal criticism. It is too late a week with SCHMIDT'S Lexicon and a dozen Shakespeare Yearbooks on Our shelves to cast any slurs on German Shakespeare criticism. Were such the intention, German criticism could well endure them with