We have already spoken of the differences between
the edition of the play which was published in 1603
and the one published in 1604. These differences
seem altogether too radical to be explained by the
theory that the earlier publication was a piratical
version, taken down in short-hand or partly written
out from memory from a theatrical representation of
the tragedy in its present form. There is strong
reason for believing the edition of 1603 to have been
printed without authority, from an imperfect copy,
and to have been maimed and distorted in many
ways ; yet no errors of a hasty copyist, or of an im-
perfect memory, can account for many of the differ-
ences between the two editions. No mere careless-
ness could turn the names of Polonius and Reynaldo
into Corambis and Montano ; no dull ear of an un-
appreciative listener could melt the stilted lines of
the mimic king in the play scene as we now have it
into the liquid music of the early Quarto.
Upon the question as to whether the First Quarto
was the skeleton report of the Second (and really
earlier one) depend several very interesting glimpses
of the stage history of this most majestic of all plays.
