lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for't.-What players are they?

Ros. Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city.

HAM. How chances it, they travel'? their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.

Ros. I think, their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation 2.

A sere is likewise the talon of a hawk. See p. 292, n. 1.

These words are not in the quarto. MALONE.

STEEVENS.

The same expression occurs in Howard's Defensative against the Poyson of supposed Prophecies, 1620, folio: "Discovering the moods and humors of the vulgar sort to be so loose and tickle of the seare," &c. folio 31. Every one has felt that dry tickling in the throat and lungs which excites coughing. Hamlet's meaning may therefore be, the clown by his merriment shall convert even their coughing into laughter. Douce.

9 the lady shall say her mind, &c.] The lady shall have no obstruction, unless from the lameness of the verse. JOHNSON.

I think, the meaning is,―The lady shall mar the measure of the verse, rather than not express herself freely or fully. HENDERSON.

How chances it, they TRAVEL?] To travel in Shakspeare's time was the technical word, for which we have substituted to stroll. So, in the Office-book of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels to King Charles the First, a manuscript of which an account is given in vol. iii.: "1622. Feb. 17, for a certificate for the Palsgrave's servants to travel into the country for six week, 10s." Again, in Ben Jonson's Poetaster, 1601: If he pen for thee once, thou shalt not need to travell, with thy pumps full of gravell, any more, after a blinde jade and a hamper, and stalk upon boords and barrel-heads to an old crackt trumpet." These words are addressed to a player. MALONE.

2 I think, their INHIBITION, &c.] I fancy this is transposed: Hamlet inquires not about an inhibition, but an innovation: the answer therefore probably was,-'I think, their innovation,' that is, their new practice of strolling, comes by means of the late inhibition.' JOHNSON.

The drift of Hamlet's question appears to be this,-How chances it they travel?-i. e. How happens it that they are become strollers?—Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways -i. e. to have remained in a settled theatre, was

HAM. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so followed?

the more honourable as well as the more lucrative situation. To this, Rosencrantz replies,-Their inhibition comes by means of the late innovation.-i. e. 'their permission to act any longer at an established house is taken away, in consequence of the new custom of introducing personal abuse into their comedies.' Several companies of actors in the time of our author were silenced on account of this licentious practice. Among these (as appears from a passage in Have With You to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is Up, &c. 1596,) even the children of St. Paul's: "Troth, would he might for mee (that's all the harme I wish him) for then we neede never wishe the playes at Powles up againe," &c. See a dialogue between Comedy and Envy at the conclusion of Mucedorus, 1598, as well as the preludium to Aristippus, or the Jovial Philosopher, 1630, from whence the following passage is taken: "Shews having been long intermitted and forbidden by authority, for their abuses, could not be raised but by conjuring." Shew enters, whipped by two furies, and the prologue says to herwith tears wash off that guilty sin,

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Purge out those ill-digested dregs of wit,
"That use their ink to blot a spotless name:
"Let's have no one particular man traduc'd,—
spare the persons," &c.

Alteration, therefore, in the order of the words, seems to be quite unnecessary. STEEVENS.

There will still, however, remain some difficulty. The statute 39 Eliz. ch. 4, which seems to be alluded to by the words-their inhibition, was not made to inhibit the players from acting any longer at an established theatre, but to prohibit them from strolling. "All fencers, (says the act,) bearwards, common players of enterludes, and minstrels, wandering abroad, (other than players of enterludes, belonging to any baron of this realm or any other honourable personage of greater degree, to be authorized to play under the hand and seal of arms of such baron or personage,) shall be taken, adjudged, and deemed rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, and shall sustain such pain and punishments as by this act is in that behalf appointed."

This statute, if alluded to, is repugnant to Dr. Johnson's transposition of the text, and to Mr. Steevens's explanation of it as it now stands. Yet Mr. Steevens's explanation may be right: Shakspeare might not have thought of the act of Elizabeth. He could not, however, mean to charge his friends the old tragedians with the new custom of introducing personal abuse; but must rather have meant, that the old tragedians were inhibited from perVOL. VII.

U

Ros. No, indeed, they are not.

[HAM. How comes it? Do they grow rusty? Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: But there is, sir, an eyry of children, little

forming in the city, and obliged to travel, on account of the misconduct of the younger company. See note 9. MALONE.

By the late innovation, it is probable that Rosencrantz means, the late change of government. The word innovation is used in the same sense in The Triumph of Love, in Fletcher's Four Moral Representations in One, where Cornelia says to Rinaldo:

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6.6

and in poor habits clad,

(You fled, and the innovation laid aside)."

And in Fletcher's [Shirley's] play of The Coronation, after Leonatus is proclaimed king, Lysander says to Philocles :

"What dost thou think of this innovation?" M. MASON. 8 [Ham. How comes it? &c.] The lines enclosed in crotchets are in the folio of 1623, but not in any of the quartos. JOHNSON. an eyry of children, &c.] Relating to the play houses then contending, the Bankside, the Fortune, &c. played by the children of his majesty's chapel. POPE.

9

It relates to the young singing men of the chapel royal, or St. Paul's, of the former of whom perhaps the earliest mention occurs in an anonymous puritanical pamphlet, 1569, entitled The Children of the Chapel Stript and Whipt: "Plaies will neuer be supprest, while her maiesties unfledged minions flaunt it in silkes and sattens. They had as well be at their popish seruice in the deuils garments," &c.-Again, ibid: "Euen in her maiesties chapel do these pretty upstart youthes profane the Lordes day by the lascivious writhing of their tender limbes, and gorgeous decking of their apparell, in feigning bawdie fables gathered from the idolatrous heathen poets," &c.

Concerning the performances and success of the latter in attracting the best company, I also find the following passage in Jack Drum's Entertainment, or Pasquil and Katherine, 1601: 'I saw the children of Powles last night;

"And troth they pleased me pretty, pretty well,
"The apes, in time, will do it handsomely,

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I like the audience that frequenteth there
"With much applause: a man shall not be choak'd
"With the stench of garlick, nor be pasted
"To the barmy jacket of a beer-brewer.
"Tis a good gentle audience," &c.

It is said in Richard Flecknoe's Short Discourse of the English Stage, 1664, that "both the children of the chappel and St.

eyases, that cry out on the top of question', and are most tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the

Paul's, acted playes, the one in White-Friers, the other behinde the Convocation-house in Paul's; till people growing more precise, and playes more licentious, the theatre of Paul's was quite supprest, and that of the children of the chappel converted to the use of the children of the revels." STEEVENS.

The suppression to which Flecknoe alludes took place in the year 1583-4; but afterwards both the children of the chapel and of the Revels played at our author's playhouse in Blackfriars, and elsewhere: and the choir-boys of St. Paul's at their own house. See the Account of our old Theatres, in my History of the Stage. A certain number of the children of the Revels, I believe, belonged to each of the principal theatres.

Our author cannot be supposed to direct any satire at those young men who played occasionally at his own theatre. Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revels, and his Poetaster, were performed there by the children of Queen Elizabeth's chapel, in 1600 and 1601; and Eastward Hoe by the children of the revels, in 1604 or 1605. I have no doubt, therefore, that the dialogue before us was pointed at the choir-boys of St. Paul's, who in 1601 acted two of Marston's plays, Antonio and Mellida, and Antonio's Revenge. Many of Lyly's plays were represented by them about the same time; and in 1607, Chapman's Bussy d'Ambois was performed by them with great applause. It was probably in this and some other noisy tragedies of the same kind, that they cry'd out on the top of question, and were most tyrannically clapped for't.

At a later period indeed, after our poet's death, the Children of the Revels had an established theatre of their own, and some dispute seems to have arisen between them and the king's company. They performed regularly in 1623, and for eight years afterwards, at the Red Bull in St. John's Street; and in 1627, Shakspeare's company obtained an inhibition from the Master of the Revels to prevent their performing any of his plays at their house: as appears from the following entry in Sir Henry Herbert's Office-book, already mentioned: "From Mr. Heminge, in their company's name, to forbid the playinge of any of Shakspeare's playes to the Red Bull company, this 11th of Aprill, 1627,-500." From other passages in the same book, it appears that the Children of the Revels composed the Red-Bull company.

The licentiousness of the stage is noticed in a letter from Mr. Samuel Calvert to Mr. Winwood, dated March 28, 1605, which might lead us to suppose that the words found only in the folio were added at that time:

"The plays do not forbear to present upon the stage the whole

fashion; and so berattle the common stages, (so they call them) that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose quills, and dare scarce come thither.

course of this present time, not sparing the king, state, or religion, in so great absurdity, and with such liberty, that any would be afraid to hear them." Memorials, vol. ii. p. 54.

We learn from Heywood's Apology for Actors, that the little eyases here mentioned were the persons who were guilty of the late innovation, or practice of introducing personal abuse on the stage, and perhaps for their particular fault the players in general suffered; and the older and more decent comedians, as well as the children, had on some recent occasion been inhibited from acting in London, and compelled to turn strollers. This supposition will make the words, concerning which a difficulty has been stated, (see n. 7,) perfectly clear. Heywood's Apology for Actors was published in 1612; the passage therefore which is found in the folio, and not in the quarto, may have been added either in 1605 or 1612.

"Now to speake (says Heywood,) of some abuse lately crept into the quality, as an inveighing against the state, the court, the law, the citty, and their governments, with the particularizing of private mens humours, yet alive, noblemen and others, I know it distastes many; neither do I any way approve it, nor dare I by any means excuse it. The liberty which some arrogate to themselves, committing their bitterness and liberal invectives against all estates to the mouthes of children, supposing their juniority to be a privilege for any rayling, be it never so violent, I could advise all such to curbe, and limit this presumed liberty within the bands of discretion and government. But wise and judicial censurers before whom such complaints shall at any time hereafter come, will not, I hope, impute these abuses to any transgression in us, who have ever been carefull and provident to shun the like."

Prynne in his Histriomastix, speaking of the state of the stage, about the year 1620, has this passage: "Not to particularise those late new scandalous invective playes, wherein sundry persons of place and eminence [Gundemore, the late lord admiral, lord treasurer, and others,] have been particularly personated, jeared, abused in a gross and scurrilous manner," &c.

The folio 1623 has-berattled. The correction was made by the editor of the second folio. MALONE.

I

little EYASES, that cry out on the top of question,] Little eyases; i. e. young nestlings, creatures just out of the egg.

THEOBALD.

The Booke of Haukying, &c. bl. 1. no date, seems to offer an