Slew Fortenbrasse in combat, young Hamlet's father, He that's mad. But in all subsequent editions, the grave-digger says: "Here's a skull now; this skull has lain i' the earth three and twenty years." The effect of this alteration is to add considerably to Hamlet's age. "Alas, poor Yorick!" he says, "I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed, I know not how oft," etc. How old, then, was Hamlet when Yorick died? But Hamlet's age is even more distinctly fixed by other lines which do not occur in the early edition of 1603: _Hamlet._--How long hast thou been a grave-maker? _First Clown_.--Of all the days of the year, I came to 't that day that our last King Hamlet o'ercame Fortenbras. _Hamlet._--How long is that since? _First Clown._--Can not tell that? Every fool can tell that; it was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that is mad and sent to England. And presently he adds: I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years. Mr. Marshall writes: "It would appear that Shakespeare added these details, which tend to prove Hamlet to have been thirty years old, for much the same reason as he inserted the line, 'He's fat and scant of breath,' namely, in order to render Hamlet's age and personal appearance more in accordance with those of the great actor, Burbadge, who personated him." The edition of 1603 is generally accounted a piratical copy of the first sketch of the play.--_All the Year Found._