Pope's opinion or Mr. Carlyle's; it is a matter of fact and evidence.
Even in Shakespeare's time the actors threw out his additions; they throw
out these very same additions in our own. The one especial speech, if
any one such especial speech there be, in which the personal genius of
Shakespeare soars up to the very highest of its height and strikes down
to the very deepest of its depth, is passed over by modern actors; it was
cut away by Hemings and Condell. We may almost assume it as certain that
no boards have ever echoed--at least, more than once or twice--to the
supreme soliloquy of Hamlet. Those words which combine the noblest
pleading ever proffered for the rights of human reason with the loftiest
vindication ever uttered of those rights, no mortal ear within our
knowledge has ever heard spoken on the stage. A convocation even of all
priests could not have been more unhesitatingly unanimous in its
rejection than seems to have been the hereditary verdict of all actors.
It could hardly have been found worthier of theological than it has been
found of theatrical condemnation.
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