They have called it the "dram of base," the "dram of eale," &c., and then have been as much in the dark as before. Some have thought that Shakespeare intended to have written it "the dram of Bale," as a sly hit at Dr. John Bale, the first Protestant Bishop of Ossory in Ireland, who was an unscrupulous dram-drinker as well as dramatist, for he wrote a play called "Kynge Johan," which was reprinted under the editorial care of my friend, Mr. J. O. Halliwell, by the Camden Society, in 1838. But this attempt to make it reflect upon the Ossory prelate is entirely uncalled for. A little research would have showed that bale was a liquor somewhat resembling our whiskey of the true R. G. brand, the consumption of which in the dram-shops of his country the Prince Hamlet so earnestly deplored. The great Danish philosopher, V. Scheerer Homboegger, in his autobiography, speaks of it, and says that like all the Danes he prefers it to either wine or ale, or water even: Der er vand, her er vun og oel,—men allested BAELE drikker saaledes de Dansker. (Autobiog. II. xiii. Ed. Copenhag.)

As to the proofs that Hamlet's family was closely connected with the tailoring interest, they are so thickly scattered through the entire tragedy, and are so apparent even to the casual reader, that, even if I had room, it would only be necessary to mention a few of the principal ones. In the very first scene in which he is introduced, Hamlet talks in an experienced manner about his "inky cloak," "suits of solemn black," "forms" and "modes," and tries to defend himself from the suspicion which he feels is attached to him by many of the courtiers, by saying plainly, "I know not seams." This first speech of Hamlet's is a key to the wanton insincerity of his character. His mother has begged him to change his clothes,—to "cast his nighted colour off,"—and he answers her requests with, "I shall in all my best obey you, madam;" yet it is notorious that he heeds not this promise, but wears black to the end of his career.

He repeatedly uses the expressions which a tailor would naturally employ. His figures of speech frequently smell of the shop. As, for instance, he says to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, "The appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you in this garb;" in the scene preceding the play he declares that, though the devil himself wear black, he'll "have a suit of sables." In the interview with his mother, who may be supposed not to have forgotten the early history of the family, he uses such figures with still greater freedom:—

"That monster custom who all sense doth eat

Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this;

That to the use of actions fair and good

He likewise gives a frock or livery,

That aptly is put on."

In his instruction to the players he speaks of tearing "a passion to tatters, to very rags" and says of certain actors that when he saw them it seemed to him as if "some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well." In the fourth act, he calls Rosencrantz a sponge.

What better evidence of the skill of Hamlet and his father in their common trade can we have than that afforded by the fair Ophelia, who speaks of the Prince as "the glass of fashion and the mould of form"? In the chamber scene with his mother, Hamlet is taken entirely off his guard by the sudden appearance of his father's ghost, whom he apostrophizes, not in the set phrases which he used when Horatio and Marcellus were by, but as "a king of shreds and patches". Old Polonius does not wish his daughter to marry a tailor, but is too polite to tell her all of his objections to Lord Hamlet's suit; so he cloaks his reasons under these figures of speech, instead of telling her, out of whole cloth, that Hamlet is a tailor, and the match will never do:—

"Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers,

Not of that dye which there in vestments show,

But implorators of unholy suits," &c.

Some late editions of the Bard make the second line of this passage read,—

"Not of that die which their investments show,"——

which is as evident a corruption of the text as any of those detected by the indefatigable Mr. Payne Collier.