Several books of this size could easily be filled with the stage-history of Hamlet. None of Shakespeare's plays has been so often acted in Great Britain, nor in so many foreign countries; and probably more actors have appeared in the part in which, according to Macready, ‘a total failure is of rare occurrence’ than in any other. Each of these actors must have expressed something of his own intelligence and personality through Hamlet; but not all the individual touches in all the renderings, could they be collected, would be of great interest, since by no means all of them arose out of any fresh conception of the character or threw new light on Shakespeare's meaning. Many pages could be filled with details about the presentation of the two pictures, the conduct of the duel, the ‘business’ of the Play-scene, the death of Hamlet and other such matters. But many of these, and many of the emphases on words, the pauses and so forth, must have been devices for doing something different from other people in a part that was always being acted and was known by heart, during a long period of the play's history, by most of the audience. Many of them may have been (to quote Macready again) ‘innovations and traps for applause, which the following words of the text have shown to be at utter variance with the author's intention.’