In a play of so many characters as Hamlet, such a part, in a second-class
theatre, can be given only to a very inferior performer. The one to whom
it was entrusted on the present occasion was a novice. Muffled in a black
coat and a black slouched hat, and with a face half hidden by burnt cork,
he looked a most villainous villain, as he stole on and gazed about in the
most approved melo-dramatic fashion. Then he began, in a strong north
country brogue,--