It has been suggested that in the old play Hamlet was a mere lad; that Shakespeare, when he began to work on it,[255] had not determined to make Hamlet older; that, as he went on, he did so determine; and that this is the reason why the earlier part of the play makes (if it does so) a different impression from the later. I see nothing very improbable in this idea, but I must point out that it is a mistake to appeal in support of it to the passage in V. i. as found in Q1; for that passage does not in the least show that the author (if correctly reported) imagined Hamlet as a lad. I set out the statements in Q2 and Q1. Q2 says: (1) The grave-digger came to his business on the day when old Hamlet defeated Fortinbras: (2) On that day young Hamlet was born: (3) The grave-digger has, at the time of speaking, been sexton for thirty years: (4) Yorick's skull has been in the earth twenty-three years: (5) Yorick used to carry young Hamlet on his back. This is all explicit and connected, and yields the result that Hamlet is now thirty. Q1 says: (1) Yorick's skull has been in the ground a dozen years: (2) It has been in the ground ever since old Hamlet overcame Fortinbras: (3) Yorick used to carry young Hamlet on his back. From this nothing whatever follows as to Hamlet's age, except that he is more than twelve![256] Evidently the writer (if correctly reported) has no intention of telling us how old Hamlet is. That he did not imagine him as very young appears from his making him say that he has noted 'this seven year' (in Q2 'three years') that the toe of the peasant comes near the heel of the courtier. The fact that the Player-King in Q1 speaks of having been married forty years shows that here too the writer has not any reference to Hamlet's age in his mind.[257] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 255: Of course we do not know that he did work on it.] [Footnote 256: I find that I have been anticipated in this remark by H. Tuerck (_Jahrbuch_ for 1900, p. 267 ff.)] [Footnote 257: I do not know if it has been observed that in the opening of the Player-King's speech, as given in Q2 and the Folio (it is quite different in Q1), there seems to be a reminiscence of Greene's _Alphonsus King of Arragon_, Act IV., lines 33 ff. (Dyce's _Greene and Peele_, p. 239): Thrice ten times Phoebus with his golden beams Hath compassed the circle of the sky, Thrice ten times Ceres hath her workmen hir'd, And fill'd her barns with fruitful crops of corn, Since first in priesthood I did lead my life.] NOTE D. 'MY TABLES--MEET IT IS I SET IT DOWN.' This passage has occasioned much difficulty, and to many readers seems even absurd. And it has been suggested that it, with much that immediately follows it, was adopted by Shakespeare, with very little change, from the old play.