MISCELLANY.
THEOBALDUS SECUNDUS,
OR
SHAKSPEARE AS HE SHOULD BE.
NO. II.
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
When the celebrated Nat Lee was reproached with writing like a madman, his answer was, “It is very difficult to write like a madman, but very easy to write like a fool.” This sentence involves two assertions; the former is proved to be true by the play now under consideration, and the latter by the numerous commentators it has produced. Doctor Farmer has obligingly exhausted all his learning to prove that Shakspeare had none. “Animasque in vulnere ponunt.” And Mr. Malone has thought it necessary to borrow queen Elizabeth’s ruff, and eat beef-steaks with her maids of honour, in order, by living that age over again, to qualify himself to decypher the local allusions of our great bard. Poor Malone! if he had ever heard the old adage, that “none but a poet should edit a poet,” he would have saved his midnight oil, and solicited a ray from Phœbus. Now, I take the road to poetry to be just as plain as the road to Clapham. In the latter journey you have nothing to do but to invoke Rowland Hill, and in the former to invoke the sacred nine, and your business is done. You are dubbed one of the elect from that time forth, and nothing but Bedlam or the mint can invalidate your title. For myself, I can attribute my profound knowledge of the real text of my author, to no other than the following cause. On turning accidentally to volume I, page 409, of cunning little Isaac’s edition, I happened to alight upon certain antique instructions, “how a gallant should behave himself in a playhouse.” This code of dramatic laws I found ushered in by the following sentence: “The theatre is your poet’s exchange, upon which their Muses (that are now turned to merchants) meeting, barter away that light commodity of words, for a lighter ware than words, plaudities, and the breath of the great beast, which, like the threatenings of two cowards, vanish all into air.” This great beast I take to be, “The many headed monster of the pit,” mentioned in after times by Pope, and the renowned John Bull, celebrated by me, Theobaldus Secundus, in my dedication of last month. Be that however, as it may, I read the treatise through, and was so smitten with the accurate view it exhibited of the theatres of these days, that I immediately determined to transport myself, as well as I could, to the golden times of the beheader of Mary Queen of Scots. I instantly ran to the water-side, bartered for a garret, purchased the wares of a strolling company at a bargain, and I now pen this dissertation reclining on clean straw, on a stage of my own construction, and smoking a pipe of Maryland tobacco, according to the authority above quoted. “By spreading your body on the stage, and by being a justice in examining plaies, you shall put yourself into such a true scænical authority, that some poet shall not dare to present his Muse rudely before your eyes, without having first unmasked her, rifled her, and discovered all her bare and most mystical parts before you at a taverne, when you, most knightly, shall for his paines, pay for both their suppers.” If all these paines do not produce a proportionate modicum of inspiration, then know I nothing of Parnassus. Let us now proceed to business.
In the very first scene of this celebrated tragedy, I find matter of discussion.
Bernardo. Who’s there?
Francisco. Nay, answer me—stand and unfold yourself.