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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ing Courfjing Clje Storb t), imlrt HE acting conceptions of Hamlet have been almost as numerous as the tragedians who have personated him. Bur- bage, the great Hamlet of Shakespeare's own day, is said to have required from the dramatist's hand the queen's description of the prince as fat and scant of breath. Betterton, of course, omitted it, being (as indeed were Garrick, Kean, and as is Edwin Booth) small of stature and of meager build. Betterton also omitted the passage commencing ' Angels and ministers of grace, defend us, while Garrick discarded the entire graveyard scene of the fifth act, and took such other liberties as became a true inheritor of the traditions of Dryden and Davenant, who worked over the great text quite at pleasure, turning Macbeth's witches into a ballet, giving Miranda a brother, and making Shylock a low comedian with a red nose, or Portia a soubrette, with imitations of leading local barristers, as happened to hit the ribald tone of their day. But while the actor may not be asked to overlook exigencies of taste and audience, or managers to maintain a purity of context at the expense of empty houses and bankruptcy, editors, commentators, and critics cannot be permitted an equal license of interpretation. These may, indeed, put their multitudinous knowledge into foot-notes; but between the foot-notes and the text a broad line is to be drawn, below which is their prerogative, but above which they can only read like the rest of us. And yet when Ophelia exclaims, Oh! what a noble mind is here o'erthrown, she appears to have given the keynote to about two centuries of commentary. Doubtless to that gentle lady so did appear the princely lover, who chided her in brusque speech, and with rough denials dismissed her from his presence. Bu...

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