Page 78 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

STAGE-HISTORY had

of the universities gives a means of checking the date. It
has been shown that the performances at Cambridge and
at Oxford had no warrant from either university, and
that 'in the university towns' would be a more correct
statement. Some think that these performances may have
been as early as 1593; others would put them as late as
1599 or 1600. The next spark of evidence comes in
Ratseis Ghost, the second instalment (printed 1605) of
the life of Gamaliel Ratsey, the highwayman, who, in
counselling a strolling player to go to London, told him,
'if one man were dead, they will haue much neede of
such a one as thou art. There would be none in my
opinion, fitter then thy selfe to play his parts: my con-
ceipt is such of thee, that I durst venture all the mony in
my purse on thy head> to play Hamlet with him for a
wager.' That 'one man' is almost certainly Richard
Burbadge, whose funeral elegy mentions among his parts
'young Hamlett.' Rowe was told that the top of Shake-
speare's performance was the Ghost in his own Hamlet.
On September 5, 1607, and again probably in March,
1608, Hamlet was acted on board Captain William
Keeling's ship, the Dragon, at Sierra Leone, as entertain-
ment for Portuguese and English guests and as beneficial
occupation for the crew. Richard Burbadge, who may
be accepted as the first actor of the part of Hamlet, died
on March 13,1619; and someone else must have played
the part when the tragedy was performed at Court in the
winter of 1619-20; almost certainly Joseph Taylor, who
joined the company in May, 1619, and acted Hamlet
'incomparably well.' It was probably he also who acted
the part at Hampton Court on January 24, 1637; and
his influence seems to have lasted on into the succeeding
era. Downes, in Roscius Anglicanus, says that Betterton
was taught 'in every Particle of it' by Sir William
D'Avenant, who had seen Taylor, who had been 'In-
structed by the Author Mr. Shaksepeur.' Taylor can
hardly have been directly taught by Shakespeare, seeing