"You talk of the text of Shakspeare as your authority," replied
McCrab,--"I will appeal to the text too--and I will take the description
of Hamlet by Ophelia, after her interview with him. What is her language?

'Oh what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The expectancy and rose of the fair state:
The _glass_ of _fashion_ and the _mould_ of _form_,
The _observed_ of all _observers_.'

This eulogium paints in distinct colours what should be the personation
of Hamlet on the stage. It demands, not a little fellow, five feet five,
by three feet four, as you will be, if you _stuff_ the character as you
call it, but rather what Hamlet himself describes his father to have
been,

'A combination, and a form indeed.
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.'"

"Never mind my height," said Stubbs, elevating his head, and raising his
chin an inch or two out of his neckcloth.--"Garrick, you know, was none
so tall; and yet I fancy he was considered a tolerably good actor in his
day. But you remember the lines of Charles Churchill,

'There are, who think the stature all in all,
Nor like a hero if he is not tall.
The feeling sense all other wants supplies--
I rate no actor's merit from his size.
Superior height requires superior grace,
And what's a giant with a vacant face?'"