Shakspere and Montaigne Part 13

62: Act iii. sc. 1.

63: We shall now oftener touch upon satirical pa.s.sages uttered by the character himself against whom they are directed. The true dramatist gives the public no time to think over an incident in full leisure. Every means--as we have already shown before--is welcome to him, which aids in rapidly bringing out the telling traits of his figures. No surprise need therefore be felt that Hamlet, though representing Montaigne, sneers at, and morally flagellates, himself.

64: Act iii. sc. 2.

65: II. 1.

66: Act iv. sc. 7.

67: I. 9, 25; II. 10, &c. If an attentive reader will take the trouble to closely examine that part of the scene in Shakspere's _Tempest_ (act ii. sc. 1) wherein the pa.s.sage occurs, which he borrowed from Essay I. 30--'On Cannibals'--and compare it with this most 'strange Essay,' he will clearly convince himself that Shakspere can only have made use of it as a satire on Montaigne's defective memory, which entangles this author in the most ludicrous contradictions. Gonzala declares that, if he were king of the isle on which he and his companion were wrecked, he would found a commonwealth as described in the above pa.s.sage. He concludes this description, saying he would have 'no sovereignty.'

Sebastian justly remarks: 'Yet he would be king on't;' and Antonio continues by saying: 'The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.'

Even such is the contradiction in Montaigne's fanciful Essay 'On Cannibals,' where, towards the end, he speaks of a captain who holds authority over these savages, not only in war, but also in peace, 'that when he went to visit the village of his dependence, they cut him paths through the thick of their woods, through which he might pa.s.s at ease.' The beginning of this Essay described the commonwealth of these cannibals as tolerating no politic superiority, no use of service, no occupation, &c. 'What short memory!

much wanting tablets!'

In the above-mentioned scene of the _Tempest_ Sebastian makes the remark: 'No marrying 'mong his subjects,' which evidently is also meant as a hit against Montaigne's anti-matrimonial ideas, which we dwelt upon in the scene between Hamlet and Ophelia.

68: Jonson, long afterwards, had not forgotten this. .h.i.t against Montaigne. In _Epicoene_ (1609) he makes Cleremont say:--'When we come to have grey heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members ... then we'll pray and fast.'

69: This whole pa.s.sage of act v. sc. 2 (106-138) is again only to be found in the quarto of 1604, not in the folio edition of 1623. In later years the poet may have struck it out, as being only comprehensible to a smaller circle of his friends. In the same way that pa.s.sage of act iv. sc. 4, which only contains thoughts of Montaigne, was not received into the folio of 1623.

70: This is their t.i.tle in Florio's translation: _Morall, Politike, Millitarie Discourses of Lo. Michaell de Montaigne, Knight of the n.o.ble order of Saint Michaell, and one of the Gentlemen in ordinary of the French King Henry III. his Chamber_.

71: The sonnet runs thus:--

_To the Right Honourable Ladie Elizabeth Grey_. (She was a daughter of Count Shrewsbury, a Talbot.) Of honorable TALBOT honored farre, The forecast and the fortune, by his WORD _Montaigne_ here descrives; what by his Sword, What by his wit; this, as the guiding starre; That, as th' Aetolian blast, in peace or warre, At sea, or land, as cause did use afforde, _Avant le vent_, to tacke his sails aboarde, So as his course no orethwart crosse might barre, But he would sweetly sail _before the wind_; For Princes service, Countries good, his fame.

Heire-Daughter of that prudent, constant kinde, Joyning thereto of GREY as great a name, Of both chief glories shrining in your minde, Honour him that your Honor doth proclaime.'

We have already learned from the preface of the first book of the _Essais_ how Florio was 'sea-tosst, weather-beaten,' 'ship-wrackt,'

'almost drowned,' when exerting himself to capture the whale--Montaigne--and drag him through 'the rocke-rough Ocean'

with the a.s.sistance of his colleague Diodati, whom he compares to 'a guide-fish.' Hamlet calls Polonius a fish-monger. The latter fools Hamlet by pretending that yonder cloud is in the shape of a whale, which just before appeared to him like the back of a weasel.

Every word almost in this wonderful drama is a well-directed hit.

72: Essay III. 5.

73: _Ibid_. 13.

74: _Ibid_. 2.

75: The quarto of 1623 has only the third verse.

76: The old song has the word 'crouch.'

77: Essay III. 5, p. 460. Florio, p. 529.

78: We think it is worth while to quote the following verse Montaigne (III. 5) mentions when speaking of that nature of woman, which he thinks suggests to her every possible act of libidinousness:--

Nec tantum niveo gavisa est ulla columbo Compar, vel si quid dicitur improbius, Oscula mordenti semper decerpere rostro, Quantum praecipue multivola est mulier.

Florio translates (514):--

No Pigeons hen, or paire, or what worse name You list, makes with hir Snow-white c.o.c.k such game, With biting bill to catch when she is kist, As many-minded women when they list.

Is not this the character of Ophelia, as described by Shakspere--the virgin inclining to voluptuousness in Goethe's view?

79: Hamlet, act iv. sc. 5. In _Eastward Hoe_, Marston, Chapman, and Jonson make capital out of this word, and use it as a sneer against Hamlet and Ophelia. We shall return to this point later on.

80: Florio, 617.

81: Act iv. sc. 5.

82: Laertes, act i. sc. 3:--

For nature crescent does not grow alone In thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes, The inward service of the mind and soul Grows wide withal.

Montaigne, II. 12; Florio, 319:

The mind is with the body bred we do behold, It jointly growes with it, it waxeth old.--Lucr. xliii. 450.

83: Goethe's _Faust_.

84: We must mention that John Sterling, in an essay on Montaigne (_Westminster Review_, 1838), makes the following introductory remarks:--'On the whole, the celebrated soliloquy in _Hamlet_ presents a more characteristic and expressive resemblance to much of Montaigne's writings than any other portion of the plays of the great dramatist which we at present remember, though it would doubtless be easy to trace many apparent transferences from the Frenchman into the Englishman's works, as both were keen and many-sided observers in the same age and neighbouring countries. But Hamlet was in those days no popular type of character; nor were Montaigne's views and tone familiar to men till he himself had made them so. Now, the Prince of Denmark is very nearly a Montaigne, lifted to a higher eminence, and agitated by more striking circ.u.mstances and severer destiny, and altogether a somewhat more pa.s.sionate structure of man. It is not, however, very wonderful that Hamlet, who was but a part of Shakspere, should exhibit to us more than the whole of Montaigne, and the external facts appear to contradict any notion of a French ancestry for the Dane, as the play is said to have been produced in 1600, and the translation of the English not for three years later.'

During our long search through the Commentaries written on _Hamlet_, we also met with the following treatise: 'HAMLET; _ein Tendenzdrama Sheakspeare's_ (sic!!) _gegen die skeptische und kosmopolitische Weltanschauung des Michael de Montaigne, von G.

F. Stedefeld, Kreisgerichtsrath_. Berlin, 1871.'

The author of the latter-mentioned little book holds it to be probable that Shakspere wrote his _Hamlet_ for the object of freeing himself from the impressions of the famous French sceptic.

He regards this masterwork as 'the Drama of the Doubter;' as 'the apotheosis of a practical Christianity.' Hamlet, he says, is wanting in Christian piety. He has no faith, no love, no hope. His last words, 'The rest is silence,' show that he has no expectation of a future life. He must perish because he has given up the belief in a divine government of the world and in a moral order of things.

We believe we have read the Essays of Michel Montaigne with great attention. We not only do not regard him as a 'sceptic' in the sense meant by Mr. Stedefeld, but we hold him, as well as Hamlet, to be an adherent of the so-called 'practical Christianity'

--at least, of what both Montaigne and Hamlet reckon to be such.

This 'practical Christianity,' however, is a notion somewhat difficult to define.

V.

THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN BEN JONSON AND DEKKER.

MENTION OF A DISPUTE BETWEEN BEN JONSON AND SHAKSPERE IN 'THE RETURN FROM PARNa.s.sUS.'

CHARACTERISTIC OF BEN JONSON.

BEN JONSON'S HOSTILE ATt.i.tUDE TOWARDS SHAKSPERE.

DRAMATIC SKIRMISH BETWEEN BEN JONSON AND SHAKSPERE.