the most wilful, and the most resolutely
tenacious of life, is that belief bequeathed from the days of Pope, in
which it was pardonable, to the days of Mr. Carlyle, in which it is not
excusable, to the effect that Shakespeare threw off _Hamlet_ as an eagle
may moult a feather or a fool may break a jest; that he dropped his work
as a bird may drop an egg or a sophist a fallacy; that he wrote "for
gain, not glory," or that having written _Hamlet_ he thought it nothing
very wonderful to have written. For himself to have written, he
possibly, nay probably, did not think it anything miraculous; but that he
was in the fullest degree conscious of its wonderful positive worth to
all men for all time, we have the best evidence possible--his own; and
that not by mere word of mouth but by actual stroke of hand. Ben Jonson
might shout aloud over his own work on a public stage, "By God 'tis
good," and so for all its real goodness and his real greatness make sure
that both the workman and his work should be less unnaturally than
unreasonably laughed at; Shakespeare knew a better way of showing
confidence in himself, but he showed not a whit less confidence. Scene
by scene, line for line, stroke upon stroke and touch after touch, he
went over all the old laboured ground again; and not to ensure success in
his own day and fill his pockets with contemporary pence, but merely and
wholly with a purpose to make it worthy of himself and his future
students. Pence and praise enough it had evidently brought him in from
the first. No more palpable proof of this can be desired than the
instantaneous attacks on it, the jeers, howls, hoots and hisses of which
a careful ear may catch some far faint echo even yet; the fearful and
furtive yelp from beneath of the masked and writhing poeticule, the
shrill reverberation all around it of plagiarism and parody. Not one
single alteration in the whole play can possibly have been made with a
view to stage effect or to present popularity and profit; or we must
suppose that Shakespeare, however great as a man, was naturally even
greater as a fool. There is a class of mortals to whom this inference is
always grateful--to whom the fond belief that every great man must needs
be a great fool would seem always to afford real comfort and support:
happy, in Prior's phrase, could their inverted rule prove every great
fool to be a great man. Every change in the text of _Hamlet_ has
impaired its fitness for the