It seems, however, certain that all the passages above quoted refer to a drama of Hamlet anterior to that by Shakespeare, and the same which is recorded in Henslowe's _Diary_ as having been played at Newington in 1594 by "my Lord Admeralle and my lorde Chamberlen men, 9 of June, 1594, receved at Hamlet, viii, 5," the small sum arising from the performance showing most probably that the tragedy had then been long on the stage. As Shakespeare was a member of the Lord Chamberlain's Company at that time, it is certain that he must have been well acquainted with the older play of _Hamlet_, one of a series of dramas on the then favorite theme of revenge, aided by the supernatural intervention of a ghost. There are a few other early allusions to the first _Hamlet_ which appear to deserve quotation. "His father's empire and government was but as the _Poeticall Furie in a Stageaction_, compleat, yet with horrid and wofull Tragedies: a first, but no second to any _Hamlet_; and that now _Reuenge_, iust _Reuenge_ was coming with his Sworde drawne against him, his royall Mother, and dearest Sister to fill up those Murdering Sceanes."--Sir Thomas Smithe's _Voiage and Entertainment in Rushia_, 1605. "Sometimes would he overtake him and lay hands upon him like a catch-pole, as if he had arrested him, but furious Hamlet woulde presently eyther breake loose like a beare from the stake, or else so set his pawes on this dog that thus bayted him that, with tugging and tearing one another's frockes off, they both looked like mad Tom of Bedlam."--Decker's _Dead Terme_, 1608. "If any passenger come by and, wondering to see such a conjuring circle kept by hel-houndes, demaund what spirits they raise there, one of the murderers steps to him, poysons him with sweete wordes and shifts him off with this lye, that one of the women is falne in labor: but if any mad Hamlet, hearing this, smell villanie and rush in by violence to see what the tawny divels are dooing, then they excuse the fact, lay the blame on those that are the actors, and perhaps, if they see no remedie, deliver them to an officer to be lead to punishment."--Decker's _Lanthorne and Candle-light, or the Bellman's Second Nights-Walke_, 1609, a tract which was reprinted under more than one different title. Mr. Collier, in his _Farther Particulars_, 1839, cites a very curious passage--"a trout, Hamlet, with four legs"--which is given as a proverbial line in Clarke's _Paroemiologia Anglo-Latina_ (or _Proverbs English and Latin_), 1639. It is unnecessary to be too curious in searching for the exact meaning of the phrase, but, as Dr. Ingleby suggested to me, it is in all probability taken from the older play of _Hamlet_, which does not appear to have been entirely superseded at once by the new, or at least was long remembered by play-goers.