80 HOW THE LAST ACT OF HAMLET WAS WRITTEN.

and washed, and borrow a clean shirt for you, and I’ll read over the.
play to you, and you shall——_ Eh ? Off again !”

Will had n’t heard a word of the last speech.

“T suppose I must leave him for half an hour,” said the Earl,
humanely.

Thanks to the unwearying exertions of the Earl of Essex, the

tragedy did get finished, as that nobleman had proposed it should
be—somehow ! and in sufficiently good time on the following day, to
enable the actors to go on the stage with it. Of course they had to
“read” their parts for the fifth act, but as an apology was made for
the author, “who had been recently visited by a severe domestic

calamity——”

no particular disapprobation was expressed by the
audience.

Such were the circumstances under which the last act of Hamlet
was written. At least, we know of no other way in which to ac-
count for its extreme badness.

It is reported of Master Burbage, that he never paid an author in

advance again, as long as he lived.