But our play! Here we are in the gallery of a splendid edifice, equal in extent to our Covent Garden Theatre at home, having come to this part of the house in anticipation of a feeble audience in preference to the parterre or pit. Note also, that here we pay eight _schillinge_ only, while a place below would cost us twenty. But the house is crammed, for Shakespeare draws as well in Germany as in England, perhaps for the simple reason that in no other country are his works so well translated. We find ourselves in the midst of a dense cluster of earnest Danes, who say the most impressive things in the quietest way in the world. They are strongly interested in the coming performance, for “Hamlet the Dane” has taken deep hold upon the Danish affections; and in Elsinore, so great is the consideration entertained for this all but fabulous prince, that they will point you out the garden wherein his royal father suffered murder
and the grave where the “gentle prince” himself lies buried. The play begins; with the deepest earnestness the audience listen, and, crowded as they are, preserve the utmost quiet. The glorious drama scene by scene unfolds itself, and passage by passage we recognise the beauties of our great poet. Herr Carr, starring it from Vienna, is no unworthy representative of the noble-hearted Dane, although unequal, we think, to the finer traits, and more delicate emotions of the character. The dresses are admirable, sometimes gorgeous, and the groupings most effective. The scenery alone is unsatisfactory; indecisive and colourless as it is, without depth or tone, it strikes you as the first effort in perspective of a feeble-handed amateur. As the play proceeds, the action grows upon us, and the rapt spectators resent with anger the least outcry or disturbance. The first scene with the players is omitted, but the concluding portion is a triumph; for as _Hamlet_, arriving at the climax of his sarcasm, and bursting for a moment into rage, flings the flute away, with the exclamation: “S’blood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?” the whole theatre rings with the applause.
Presently, however, we are aware of a gap, a huge hiatus in the performance; a grave, and yet no grave, for the whole churchyard scene, with its quaint and exquisite philosophy, the rude wit of the gravediggers, and the pointed moralising of the prince, are all wanting—all swept away by the ruthless hand of the critic; skulls and bones, picks and mattocks, wit and drollery, diggers, waistcoats and all! Not even _Yorick_, with his “gibes” and “flashes of merriment”—not even he is spared. On the other hand, a portion of a scene is represented which, until lately, was always omitted on the English stage. It is that in which the guilty king, overcome by remorse, thus soliloquises:—