Shakspere's Characters.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 259, 1 November 1890, Page 4 (Supplement)

Shakspere's Characters.

Professor Rolfe, an American, has taken trouble to count the lines assigned to fche principal characters in Skakspere's plays. Hamlet, whose long soliloquies swell the account very is the most loquacious of all. But; for the fact that the acting copies are always ruthlessly cut down, the young Prince of Denmark would have to utter no fewer than 1,569 lines, or more than twice as many as fall to the share of King Lear, Brutus, and Macbeth. Next to Hamlet comes the crook-back Richard with 1,161, and lago with 1,117. Othello, by the way, who has some difficulty ab times in ■getting a word in eclgeways.'as thepbrase goes, when his ' ancient' is at hand, has to conbenb himself wibh only 888, which is jusb two lines more than Coriolanus gets. Romeo gets 618. Ifc is noteworthy that the old calumny that women are afflicted with . an immoderate propensity to talk, finds no support from these investigations. All the poet's women, in fact, are at fche other end 'of tbe list. The mosb voluble of all is Rosalind, but even she has only 748 lines. From hsv tbe account descends to Imogen, 541; Desdemona, 380; Beatrice, 309; Lady Macbeth, 261; Katherine (whom Miss Ada Rehan is impersonating ac the Lyceum), 220; Miranda, 142; Perdita, 128; and ! Cordelia, 115.