ny names but Captaine and Tucca.' _Tuc._ 'No, fye'st,
my name's _Hamlet, revenge_. Thou hast been at Parris Garden, hast not?'
_Hor._ 'Yes, Captaine, I ha plaide Zulziman there'"; with which may be
compared another passage in _Westward Hoe_, 1607--"I, but when light
wives make heavy husbands, let these husbands play mad _Hamlet_ and
crie, _revenge_." So, likewise, in Rowland's _Night Raven_, 1620, a
scrivener, who has his cloak and hat stolen from him, exclaims, "I will
not cry, _Hamlet, revenge_ my greeves." There is also reason to suppose
that another passage in the old tragedy of _Hamlet_ is alluded to in
Armin's _Nest of Ninnies_, 1608: "There are, as Hamlet sayes, things
cald whips in store," a sentence which seems to have been well known and
popular, for it is partially cited in the _Spanish Tragedie_, 1592, and
in the _First Part of the Contention_, 1594.

It seems, however, certain that all the passages above quoted refer to a
drama of Hamlet anterior to that by Shakespeare, and the same which is
recorded in Henslowe's _Diary_ as having been played at Newington in
1594 by "my Lord Admeralle and my lorde Chamberlen men, 9 of June, 1594,
receved at Hamlet, viii, 5," the small sum arising from the performance
showing most probably that the tragedy had then been long on the stage.
As Shakespeare was a member of the Lord Chamberlain's Company at that
time, it is certain that he must have been well acquainted with the older
play of _Hamlet_, one of a series of dramas on the then favorite theme
of revenge, aided by the supernatural intervention of a ghost.

There are a few other early allusions to the first _Hamlet_ which appear
to deserve quotation. "His father's empire and government was but as the
_Poeticall Furie in a Stageaction_, compleat, yet with horrid and wofull
Tragedies: a first, but no second to any _Hamlet_; and that now
_Reuenge_, iust _Reuenge_ was coming with his Sworde drawne against him,
his royall Mother, and dearest Sister to fill up those Murdering
Sceanes."--Sir Thomas Smithe's _Voiage and Entertainment in Rushia_,
1605. "Sometimes would he overtake him and lay hands upon him like a
catch-pole, as if he had arrested him, but furious Hamlet woulde
presently eyther breake loose like a beare from the stake, or else so
set his pawes on this dog that thus bayted him that, with tugging and
tearing one another's frockes off, they both looked like mad Tom of
Bedlam."--Decker's _Dead Terme_, 1608. "If any