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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: Laertes, the King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, otherwise a
drama cannot go on. If even Garrick himself were to rise from
the dead, he could not act Hamlet alone. There must be generals,
colonels, commanding-officers, subalterns. But what are the
private soldiers to do? Many have mistaken their own talents,
and have been driven in early youth to try the stage, to which
they are not competent. He would know what to say to the
indifferent poet and to the bad artist. He would say that it was
foolish, and he would recommend to the poet to become a scribe,
and the artist to paint sign-posts. (Loud laughter.) But you
could not send the player adrift; for if he cannot play Hamlet,
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