BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.

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THE HAMLET IN THE HAYMARKET.

With Mr. TREE's impersonation of _Hamlet_ most London playgoers
are by this time acquainted, though not yet familiar. It is a
most interesting performance, especially to those who remember
the inauguration of startling new departures by CHARLES FECHTER.
The question for every fresh _Hamlet_ must always be, "How can I
differentiate my _Hamlet_ from all previous _Hamlets_? What can I
do that nobody has as yet thought of doing?" "To be or not to be"
_Hamlet_, "that is the question"; whether 'tis better continuously to
suffer the tortures of uncertainty as to what you might have achieved
had you essayed the part, or to take up the study of it, and ceasing
to shiver on the bank, leave off your damnable faces, and plunge in?
Mr. TREE has plunged, and is going on swimmingly.

Mrs. TREE's _Ophelia_ sane, is charming. Her distraught _Ophelia_ is
very mad indeed, and her method in her madness is excellent.

[Illustration: "I am thy Father's Ghost!"]

There is a curious monotony in some of the stage-business. Thus,
_Ophelia_ pauses in her exit and comes up quietly behind the
absent-minded Prince as if to play bo-peep with him: then, later on,
after his apparently brutal treatment of her, _Hamlet_ returns, and,
while he is stooping and in tears, he kisses her hair and runs away
noiselessly as if this also were another part of the same game. Then
again, in the Churchyard, after the scandalous brawling (brought
about by the stupid ignorance of a dunderheaded ecclesiastic, to whose
Bishop _Laertes_ ought to have immediately reported him), _Hamlet_
returns to weep and throw flowers into the grave. Now excellent
"returns" are dear to the managerial heart, and consoling to his
pocket, when they attest the overflowing attendance of "friends in
front;" but when "returns" are on the stage, their excellence may be
questioned on the score of monotony. Now, as to the Churchyard Scene,
permit me to make a suggestion:--the Second Gravedigger has been
commissioned by the First Gravedigger, with money down, to go to a
neighbouring publican of the name of YAUGHAN, pronounced Yogan or
Yawn,--probably the latter, on account either of his opening his mouth
wide, or of his being a sleepy-headed fellow,--and fetch a stoop of
liquor. Now, when all the turmoil is over, the remaining gravedigger
would at once set to work, as in fact he does in this scene at