"Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
(Pat, went the right hand,)
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,"
(Pat, went the left hand,)
the effect was irresistible. One roar of laughter shook the theatre, from the back row of the shilling gallery to the first row of the pit, mingled with cries of bravo! bravo! go on, my little fellow—you shall have fair play—silence—bravo! silence!—Stubbs, meanwhile, looked as if he were really wondering what they were all laughing at; and when at length silence was partially restored, he continued his soliloquy. His delivery of the lines,
"Fye on't oh fye! 'tis an unweeded garden
That grown to seed: things rank and gross in nature," &c.
was one of his new readings—for holding up his finger, and looking towards the audience with a severe expression of countenance, it appeared as though he were chiding their ill manners in laughing at him, when he said, "Fye on't—oh, fye!"
He was allowed to proceed, however, with such interruptions only as his own original conceptions of the part provoked from time to time; or when any thing he had to say was obviously susceptible of an application to himself. Thus, for example, in the scene with Horatio and Marcellus, after his interview with the ghost:—
"Ham. And now, good friends,