Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "King Claudius" in English language version.
In his last two years as president, he had a small amount of free time from his duties, and went to the theater quite often, finally getting to see the plays he so dearly loved acted on stage. As a result, he started a brief correspondence with one of the leading actors of the day, James Hackett. Writing to him on August 17th, 1863, Lincoln says, "Unlike you gentlemen of the profession [professional actors], I think the soliloquy in Hamlet commencing 'O, my offense is rank' surpasses that commencing 'To be or not to be.'