suppose, because in the Nunnery scene with Ophelia he was the lover
above the prince and the poet. With what passionate longing his hands
hovered over Ophelia at her words:

"Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind."

His advice to the players was not advice. He did not speak it as an
actor. Nearly all Hamlets in that scene give away the fact that they are
actors, and not dilettanti of royal blood. Irving defined the way he
would have the players speak as an _order_, an instruction of the merit
of which he was regally sure. There was no patronizing flavor in his
acting here, not a touch of "I'll teach you how to do it." He was
swift--swift and simple--pausing for the right word now and again, as in
the phrase "to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature." His slight pause
and eloquent gesture was the all-embracing word "Nature" came in answer
to his call, were exactly repeated unconsciously years later by the
Queen of Roumania (Carmen Sylva). She was telling us the story of a
play that she had written. The words rushed out swiftly, but
occasionally she would wait for the one that expressed her meaning most
comprehensively and exactly, and as she got it, up went her hand in
triumph over her head. "Like yours in 'Hamlet,'" I told Henry at the
time.

I knew this Hamlet both ways--as an actress from the stage, and as an
actress putting away her profession for the time as one of the
audience--and both ways it was superb to me. Tennyson, I know, said it
was not a perfect Hamlet. I wonder, then, where he hoped to find
perfection!

James Spedding, considered a fine critic in his day, said Irving was