A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare Author:William Shakespeare Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3COSTUME B0aden textit{(Life of ?. ?. ?rnt?e, London, 1825, vol. ¡, p. 104) : We have been accustomed for so many years to see Hamlet dressed in the Vandyke costume, that it may be mater... more »ial to state that Kemble played the part in a modern court-dress of rich black velvet, with a star on the breast, the garter and pendent ribbon of an order,—mourning sword and buckles, with deep ruffles ; the hair in powder, which, in the scenes of feigned distraction, flowed dishevelled in front and over the shoulders. As to the expression of the face, perhaps the powdered hair, from contrast, had a superior effect to the short curled wig at present worn. The eyes seemed to possess more brilliancy. With regard to costume, correctness in either case is out of the question, only that the Vandyke habit is preferable, as it removes a positive anachronism and inconsistency. The ghost of Hamlet's father appears in textit{armor ; a dress certainly suited to a warrior, but to one of other times. Now this was not at all incompatible with the dress called after Vandyke, in whose time armor was undoubtedly worn, as he has shown in a great variety of portraits. But a completely textit{modern suit upon young Hamlet, with his father in armor, throws the two characters into different and even remote periods. Knight: It has been conjectured, and with sufficient reason, by Strutt and other writers on the subject of costume, that the dress of the Danes during the tenth and eleventh centuries differed little, if anything, in shape from that of the Anglo- Saxons ; and although from several scattered passages in the works of the Welsh bards and in the old Danish ballads we gather that black was a favorite color, we are expressly told by Arnold of Lubeck, that at the time he wrote (circa 1127) they had become ' wearers of scarlet, purple...« less