Page 86 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

S T A G E - H I S T O R Y kxix

The finest thing in Garrick's performance was evi-
dently his meeting with the Ghost. He made Bransby,
who was 'tolerably substantial,' seem 'incorporeal'—
which means that he so acted terror as to make his
audience share it. Lichtenberg describes the deathly still-
ness over the whole house while Hamlet, after standing
up-stage with his hat pulled over his eyes and his arms
folded under his cloak, is turning slightly away to the
left, when Horatio suddenly points to the right with
'Look, my lord, it comes!' and the Ghost is there,
motionless, before the audience is aware of it. Then
'Garrick turns abruptly round and at the same moment
totters backward two or three steps, his knees knocking
together beneath him, his hat falls on the ground, his
arms, especially the left, are almost fully opened, the
hand on a level with his head, the right arm bent with
the hand hanging down, the fingers wide apart, the
mouth open, so he stands, widely astride but not un-
gainly, as if turned to stone, held up by his friends, who
have seen the Ghost before and are afraid he will fall.
His face expressed such horror that shudder after shud-
der ran through one before he began to speak. The
almost appalling silence of the audience, which began
before this scene and made one feel scarcely safe,
probably contributed not a little to the effect. At last he
speaks, not with the beginning but with the end of a
breath, and says in trembling tones, "Angels and
ministers of grace defend us!" words which supply
whatever might still be lacking to make this scene one of
the greatest and most dreadful of which, perhaps, the
stage is capable. The Ghost beckons him, then you
should see him, never moving his eyes from the Ghost^
even while he is talking to his friends and breaking away
from them when they hold him back and warn him not
to follow. But at last, his patience exhausted, he turns his
eyes on them, tears himself violently away, and with a
swiftness that makes one shudder draws his sword on

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