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THE HAMLET PASSAGE 
erous applause of the most select and judicial audiences of 
-London.* 
177 
The men-players are doing their best to maintain their pres- 
 tige; but they are unable to stem the tide of popularity and fash- 
The followers after illustrious example have taken up the 
theatre with its privileges of privacy, high prices, novelties, and 
spectacular effect as the fad of the day. The Boy-actors and 
their poets have rather got the best of it in the wit-combat be- 
tween them and the “common stages” 
and have given the latter 
such a shaking up with their rattling fire as to diminish their pop- 
ularity still farther in comparison. 
The local and personal drives 
have caused my rapier-girdled courtier and fine gentleman to 
avoid the public theatres rather than make himself for coming 
thither the subject of later stage-jest before his fashionable set 
at Blackfriars.? 
esties unfledged minions” in The 
Children of the Chapel Stript and 
Whipt (1569), supra, 4’, and “neast 
of boys able to ravish a man” 
in Father Hubbard’s 
T. M. (1604), infra, chap. XVI. 
~ *€Cry out on the top of ques- 
tion” is usually explained as a de- 
traction of the Boys; as, “at the 
top of their voices,” “with bad elo- 
cution,’ &c. I cannot find any de- 
traction of the Boys in the whole 
passage. It is not they, but the 
manner of their establishment and 
support that is objectionable. 
Moreover, I find no untruth in 
the passage. It would be not only 
false, but would kill Shakespeare’s 
own point, for him to say the act- 
ing was bad. The whole history 
of the Boys shows it was good. 
At the time Hamlet was written, 
young Pavy, Field, Underwood, and 
Ostler were among the chief Chil- 
dren-actors. Pavy was famous then 
as a boy who acted old men’s parts 
superbly, and at his death (1601 
or 1602?) was made the subject of 
Jonson’s noble tribute to him as an 
actor,—one of the most delicate and 
appreciative recognitions of excel- 
lence ever written. (See further, 
Careers of Actors, infra, vol. II.) 
"The latter three Boys were also 
Tales, by. 
superior actors, and were all, a few 
years later, taken into Shakespeare’s 
own company, where they were 
among the leaders. Field was sec- 
ond only to Burbage. (See their 
careers, u. S.) 
Also, at the time Hamlet was 
written, the Boys were pleasing to 
Queen, Court, and critical London. 
(See audiences, supra, 112, 164-66". ) 
Historically, the notion of bad 
acting has no basis. 
That “cry out on the top of 
question” means “excel,” “do with 
unquestioned excellence,’ “exhibit 
superiority” is clear from the Ham- 
let text in the light of the facts, as 
above. It is substantiated by the 
only two known similar uses of 
Shakespeare’s time. In this same 
scene (II, ii, 417) Hamlet speaks 
of “others whose judgments cried 
in the top of mine” (=excelled, 
were superior to]. In Robert Ar- 
min’s Nest of Ninnies (1608, ed. 
Collier, S. S. Pub., 1842, X), 55, 
the author speaks of “making them 
[fencers or players at single-stick] 
expert till they cry it up in the top 
of question.” This seems final as 
a commentary. 
*It was the custom at Black- 
friars (and probably at other the- 
atres) to break jests upon the 
291 
