_Enter Hamlet._ _Ham._――To be, or not to be, that is the Question: Whether ’tis Nobler in the minde to suffer The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune, Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them: to dye, to sleepe No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes That Flesh is heyre too? ’Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d. To dye, to sleepe, To sleepe, perchance to Dreame; I, there’s the rub, For in that sleepe of death, what dreames may come, When we have shuffle’d off this mortall coile, Must give us pawse. There’s the respect That makes Calamity of so long life; For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time, The Oppressors wrong, the poore man’s Contumely, The pangs of dispriz’d Love, the Lawes delay, The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himselfe might his _Quietus_ make With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardles beare, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered Countrey, from whose Borne No Traveller returnes, Puzels the will, And makes us rather beare those illes we have, Than flye to others that we know not of. Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all, And thus the Native hew of Resolution Is sicklied o’re, with the pale cast of Thought, And enterprizes of great pith and moment, With this regard their Currants turne away, And loose the name of Action. Soft you now, The faire _Ophelia_? Nimph, in thy Orizons Be all my sinnes remembred. _The Tragedie of Hamlet._ ――――:o:―――― Amongst the announcements for April, 1846, in George Cruikshank’s Comic Almanack appeared the following:―― APRIL. The Shakespeare Jubilee Festival will be celebrated at the “Only National Theatre” on the 23rd, with the following performances:―― The Grand Opera of ‘HAMLET;’ the Music by Mr. Balfe; the _libretto_ by Messrs. Shakespeare and Bunn. From the Opera, the following song may be predicted to be sung by the first tenor, Hamlet:―― “TO BE, OR NOT TO BE.” “Oh say! To be, or not to be? That is the question grave; To suffer Fortune’s slings and darts, Or seas of troubles brave. To die, to sleep! perchance, to dream!―― Ay, there’s the rub! when we Have shuffled off this mortal coil!―― To be, or not to be!