f pe Le ee te ees 
mind e 
174 CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL AT BLACKFRIARS 
I accept it as a conclusion now beyond debate that the whole 
passage in F, was written in 1601 and first acted by the closing — 
months of that year or the opening of 1602, the only period in — 
Q. (1604), II, ii, 315-24 
315 Ham. What players are they? 
Ros. Even those you were wont to take such delight 
in, the tragedians of the city. 
Ham. How chances it they trauaile? their residence, both 
in reputation and profit, was better both ways. 
320 kos. I think their inhibition comes by the means of the 
late innovation. 
Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did when 
I was:in the city? are they so followed? 
Ros. No, indeed, are they not. 
Lines 325-45 (“Ham. How comes it? ... Hercules and his load too”) 
are omitted from Q:, Qs, Qs, Qs. In all the Qgq, the next speech begins, 
“Ham. It is not very strange; for my uncle,’ &c.,.as in F,, infra, 1. 346. 
F, (1623), II, ii, 315-50 
F, gives 315-24 exactly as Q:, with the exception of transposing “they” 
and “are” in 324, and continues with 325-45, omitted from the Qe, Qs, Qu 
Q;, thus :— 
325 Ham. How comes it? Do they grow rusty? 
Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; 
but there is, sir, an aerie of children, little eyases, that cry 
out on the top of question and are most tyrannically clapped 
fort; these are now the fashion, and so berattle the com- 
330 mon stages—so they call them—that many wearing rapiers 
are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither. 
Ham. What, are they children? who maintains ’em? 
how are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no 
longer than they can sing? will they not say afterwards, if 
335 they should grow themselves to common players,—as it is 
most like, if their means are no better,—their writers do them 
wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession? 
Ros. ’Faith, there has been much to-do on both sides, 
and the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy; 
340 there was for a while no monev bid for argument, unless 
the. poet and the player went to cuffs in the question. 
Ham. Is’t possible? 
Guil. Oh, there has been much throwing about of brains. 
Ham. Do the boys carry it away? 
345 Ros. Ay. that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too. 
Ham. It is not very strange; for my uncle is king of 
Denmark, and those, that would make mows at him while 
my father lived give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats 
a-piece, for his picture in little. “Sblood, there is something 
in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out. 
288 
