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Updated: June 22, 2025
This is a London boot, eh? 'That, sir, I replied, 'is a London boot. He mused over it again, after the manner of Hamlet with Yorick's skull; nodded his head, as who should say, 'I pity the Institutions that led to the production of this boot!; rose; put up his pencil, notes, and paper glancing at himself in the glass, all the time put on his hat drew on his gloves very slowly; and finally walked out.
Grim and black within, at night, those great dry Wells, and lonesome to imagine, with the rows of faces faded out, the lights extinguished, and the seats all empty. One would think that nothing in them knew itself at such a time but Yorick's skull.
Yorick's curate was smoking a pipe by the fire, but said not a word, good or bad, to comfort the youth." The whole scene is absolute life; and the dialogue between the Corporal and the parson, as related by the former to his master, with Captain Shandy's comments thereon, is almost Shakspearian in its excellence.
It has been used for fifty or sixty years as a 'property' at the Walnut Street Theatre, whenever 'Hamlet' has been performed, and as 'Yorick's skull' has been handled in that play, from Edmund Kean down to Henry Irving and Edwin Booth. It is preserved with care, and mounted on a piece of polished black marble.
In the graveyard scene of this tragedy he directs that one of the skulls thrown up by the first clown shall have a tattered and mouldy fool's-cap adhering to it, so that it may attract attention, and be singled out from the others, as "Yorick's skull, the king's jester."
It was something more than a paper-weight, he was intuitively prompted, for he said, handling it reverently as Yorick's relict: "By the way, whose is this?" Before the cue could be given to hush or utter a subterfuge, some one blurted out: "Abraham Lincoln's! Don't you know?"
But, alas! that retrospect doubled my chagrin instead of diverting it. I soon forgot an impotent cabal of mock-patriots; but the scene they vainly sought to disturb rushed on my mind, and, like Hamlet on the sight of Yorick's skull, I recollected the prosperity of Denmark when my father ruled, and compared it with the present moment!
He runs the crusty forefinger of his right hand up and down the board, adding, "and my customers are all of the first families, which is some consolation in one's poverty. Ah! I have it here!" he exclaims, with childlike exultation, frisking his fingers over the board. "One Yorick's skull a time-worn, tenantless, and valuable relic, in which graveyard worms have banqueted more than once.
"Then reach my breeches off the chair," said my father to Susanah. "There's not a moment's time to dress you, sir," cried Susanah; "bless me, sir, the child's in a fit. Mr. Yorick's curate's in the dressing room with the child upon his arm, waiting for the name; and my mistress bid me run as fast as I could to know, as Captain Shandy is the godfather, whether it should not be called after him."
That play was "Un Drama Nueva," by Estebanez, which between us we called "Yorick's Love" and which my very knightly tragedian made his battle-horse during the latter years of his life. In another version Barrett had seen it fail in New York, but its failure left him with the lasting desire to do it himself.
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