Page:Hamlet - The Arden Shakespeare - 1899.djvu/264



Q 1 (1603) reads as follows:

Ham. How comes it that they travell? Do they grow restie?

Gil. No my Lord, their reputation holds as it was wont.

Ham. How then?

Gil. Yfaith my Lord, noveltie carries it away, For the principall publike audience that Came to them, are turned to private playes, And to the humour of children.

Q (1604):

Ham. How chances it they trauaile? their residence both in reputation, and profit was better both wayes.

Ros. I thinke their inhibition, comes by the meanes of the late innouasion.

Ham. Doe they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the Citty; are they so followed.

Ros. No indeed are they not.

F (1623) repeats Q (1604) so far, and adds all that follows as given in the text (pp. 99–101) to and including the words "Hercules and his load too."

The discussion of this matter by Prof. W. Hall Griffin in The Athenæum, April 25, 1896, seems to me highly satisfactory. At Michaelmas 1600 Henry Evans took possession of the Blackfriars Theatre,—a private theatre,—which he leased from Richard Burbage, and there he set up "a companie of boyes," who became exceedingly popular. This is referred to in Q. 1.