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 the Haymarket; but here he just shovels a handful of mould into the grave, and then, without rhyme or reason (with both of which he has been plentifully supplied by SHAKSPEARE), suddenly away he goes, merely to allow for the “business” of Hamlet’s re-entrance.  But why shouldn’t there be here, prior to the return of Hamlet, a re-entrance of the Second Gravedigger, as if coming back from friend YAUGHAN’s with the pot of ale?  The sight of this would attract First Gravedigger, and take the thirsty soul most readily from his work to discuss the refreshment in some shady nook.  Then by all means let Hamlet return to pour out his grief; and on this picture ought the Curtain effectively descend.