TRAGEDY OF HAMLET. WITH INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL. FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND CLASSES. BY THE REV. HENRY N. HUDSON, PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE SCHOOL OF ORATORY, BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY GINN & HEATH. 1879. HARVARD Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by HENRY N. HUDSON, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Cushing & Bramhall, Printers, Boston. PREFACE. INCE the first volume of my School Shakespeare made SINC its appearance, which was about nine years ago, very considerable advances have been made in the way of furniture and preparation needful or desirable for such a work. This is especially the case with the play here presented in a new dress. And my own long and constant occupation in teaching classes in Shakespeare has, I would fain hope, now brought me a somewhat larger and riper fitness for doing what is requisite in this particular field. Moreover the stereotype plates of this play, as also of some others, have been so much and so often used for the pamphlet sections of the volume, that they have become not a little worn and defaced. These are the principal reasons for setting forth the present edition. I still adhere to my old plan of foot-notes, instead of massing the annotation all together at the end of the play. This is because ample experience has assured me, beyond all peradventure, that whatever of explanation young students need of Shakespeare's text and they certainly need a good deal is much better every way when placed directly under the eye, so that they can hardly miss it; and because at least nineteen in twenty of such pupils will pass over an obscure word or phrase without understanding it, rather than stay to look up the explanation in another part of the volume. In this instance, however, I have meant to exclude from the footnotes all matter but what appeared fairly needful or useful |
