'With which speech he put the army into an infinite fury and uproar; whereas, truth was, he had no brother, neither was there any _such_ matter [in that case], but he played it merely _as if_ he had been upon the stage.' This is the philosopher and stage critic who expresses a decided opinion elsewhere, that 'the play's the thing,' though he finds this kind of writing, too, useful in its way, and for certain purposes; but he is the one who, in speaking of the original differences in the natures and gifts of men, suggests that 'there _are_ a kind of men who can, as it were, divide themselves;' and he does not hesitate to propound it as his deliberate opinion, that a man of wit should have at command a number of styles adapted to different auditors and exigencies; that is, if he expects to accomplish anything with his rhetoric. That is what he makes himself responsible for from his professional chair of learning; but it is the Prince of Denmark, with his remarkable natural faculty of speaking to the point, who says, '_Seneca_ can not be _too heavy_, nor _Plautus_ too light, for--[what?]--the _law of writ_--and--the _liberty_.' '_These_ are the only _men_,' he adds, referring apparently to that tinselled gauded group of servants that stand there awaiting his orders. 'My lord--you played once _in the university_, you say,' he observes afterwards, addressing himself to that so politic statesmen whose overreaching court plots and performances end for himself so disastrously. 'That did I, my lord,' replies Polonius, '_and was accounted a good actor_.' 'And what did you enact?' 'I did enact _Julius Caesar_. I--was killed i' the Capitol [I]. Brutus killed me.' 'It was a _brute_ part of him [collateral sounds--Elizabethan phonography] to kill so _capitol a calf_ there.--Be the players ready?'(?). [That is the question.]