when, placing his two hands
upon his little round belly, he exclaimed, while looking sorrowfully at
it,

"Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
(Pat, went the right hand,)
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,"
(Pat, went the left hand,)

the effect was irresistible. One roar of laughter shook the theatre, from
the back row of the shilling gallery to the first row of the pit, mingled
with cries of _bravo! bravo! go on, my little fellow--you shall have fair
play--silence--bravo! silence!_--Stubbs, meanwhile, looked as if he were
really wondering what they were all laughing at; and when at length
silence was partially restored, he continued his soliloquy. His delivery
of the lines,

"Fye on't oh fye! 'tis an unweeded garden
That grown to seed: things rank and gross in nature," &c.

was one of his new readings--for holding up his finger, and looking
towards the audience with a severe expression of countenance, it appeared
as though he were chiding their ill manners in laughing at him, when he
said, "Fye on't--oh, fye!"

He was allowed to proceed, however, with such interruptions only as his
own original conceptions of the part provoked from time to time; or when
any thing he had to say was obviously susceptible of an application to
himself. Thus, for example, in the scene with Horatio and Marcellus,
after his interview with the ghost:--

_"Ham_. And now, good friends,
As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.

_Hor_. What is it, my lord? We will.

_Ham. Never make known what you have seen to-night."_

"Let him, if he likes," exclaimed a voice from the pit--"he'll never see
such a sight again."--Then, in his instructions to the players, his
delivery of them was accompanied by something like the following running
commentary:

"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, (_that is
impossible!_) trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of
our players do, (_laughter_,) I had as lief the town-crier spoke my
lines. * * * Oh, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious,
periwig-pated fellow (_like yourself_) tear a passion to tatters, &c.--I
would have such a fellow whipped (_give it him, he deserves it_) for
o'erdoing Termagant. * * * Oh, there be players that I have seen play,
(_no, we see him,_) and heard others praise, and that highly, (_oh! oh!
oh!_) not to speak it profanely, that, having neither the acce