{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8139/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8139","id":"gutenberg_8139","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8139","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Hamlet (Legendary character)","Jonson, Ben, 1573?-1637","Montaigne, Michel de, 1533-1592 -- Influence","Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Philosophy","Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Hamlet"],"text":"E-text prepared by Bill Boerst, Juliet Sutherland, and Tonya Allen\n\nEditorial note: \"Shakspere\" is the spelling used by the author and\n                therefore was not changed\n\n\n\n\nSHAKSPERE AND MONTAIGNE\n\nAn Endeavour to Explain the Tendency of 'Hamlet'\nfrom Allusions in Contemporary Works\n\nBY JACOB FEIS\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\nI.\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nII.\n\nTHE BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA\n\nTHE STAGE A MEDIUM FOR POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES\n\nSHAKSPERE'S POLITICAL CREED\n\nFLORIO'S TRANSLATION OF MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS\n\nIII.\n\nMONTAIGNE\n\nIV.\n\nHAMLET\n\nV.\n\nTHE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN BEN JONSON AND DEKKER\n\nMENTION OF A DISPUTE BETWEEN BEN JONSON AND SHAKSPERE\nIN 'THE RETURN FROM PARNASSUS'\n\nCHARACTERISTIC OF BEN JONSON\n\nBEN JONSON'S HOSTILE ATTITUDE TOWARDS SHAKSPERE\n\nDRAMATIC SKIRMISH BETWEEN BEN JONSON AND SHAKSPERE\n\nBEN JONSON'S 'POETASTER'\n\nDEKKER'S 'SATIROMASTIX'\n\nVI.\n\n'VOLPONE,' BY BEN JONSON\n\n'EASTWARD HOE,' BY CHAPMAN, BEN JONSON, AND MARSTON\n\n'THE MALCONTENT,' BY JOHN MARSTON\n\n\n\nI.\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\nIt has always been a daring venture to attempt finding out Shakspere's\nindividuality, and the range of his  philosophical and political ideas,\nfrom his poetical productions. We come nearest to his feelings in his\n'Sonnets;' but only a few heavy sighs, as it were, from a time of\nlanguish in his life can be heard therefrom. All the rest of those\nlyrical effusions, in spite of the zealous exertions of commentators\nfull of delicate sentiment and of deep thought, remain an unsolved\nsecret.\n\nIn his historical dramas, a political creed has been pointed out, which,\nwith some degree of certainty, may be held to have been his. From his\nother dramas, the most varied evidence has been drawn. A perfect maze of\ncontradictions has been read out of them; so much so that, on this\nground, we might almost despair of trustworthy results from further\ninquiry.\n\nThe wildest and most incongruous theories have been founded upon 'Hamlet'\n--the drama richest in philosophical contents. Over and over again men\nhave hoped to be able to ascertain, from this tragedy, the great\nmaster's ideas about religion. It is well-nigh impossible to say how\noften such attempts have been made, but the reward of the exertions\nhas always remained unsatisfactory. On the feelings which this masterwork\nof dramatic art still excites to-day--nearly three hundred years after\nits conception--thousands have based the most different conclusions;\nevery one being convinced of the correctness of his own impressions.\nThere is a special literature, composed of such rendering of personal\nimpressions which that most enigmatical of all dramas has made upon\nmen of various disposition. Every hypothesis finds its adherents among\na small group, whilst those who feel differently smile at the\ninfatuation of their antagonists. Nothing that could give true and final\nsatisfaction has yet been reached in this direction.\n\nIt is our intention to regard 'Hamlet' from a new point of view, which\nseems to promise more success than the critical endeavours hitherto\nmade. We propose to enter upon a close investigation of a series of\ncircumstances, events, and personal relations of the poet, as well\nas of certain indications contained in other dramatic works--all of\nthe period in which 'Hamlet' was written and brought into publicity.\nThis valuable material, properly arranged and put in its true connection,\nwill, we believe, furnish us with such firm and solid stepping-stones\nas to allow us, on a perfectly trustworthy path, to approach the real\nintentions of this philosophical tragedy. It has long ago been felt\nthat, in it, Shakspere has laid down his religious views. By the means\nalluded to we will now explain that _credo_.\n\nWe believe we can successfully show that the tendency of 'Hamlet' is of\na controversial nature. In closely examining the innovations by which\nthe augmented second quarto edition [1](1604) distinguishes itself\nfrom the first quarto, published the year before (1603), we find that\nalmost every one of these innovations is directed against the principles\nof a new philosophical work--_The Essays of Michel Montaigne_--which\nhad appeared at that time in England, and which was brought out under\nthe high auspices of the foremost noblemen and protectors of literature\nin this country.\n\nFrom many hints in contemporary dramas, and from some clear passages in\n'Hamlet' itself, it follows at the same time that the polemics carried\non by Shakspere in 'Hamlet' are in most intimate connection with a\ncontroversy in which the public took a great interest, and which, in\nthe first years of the seventeenth century, was fought out with much\nbitterness on the stage. The remarkable controversy is known, in\nthe literature of that age, under the designation of the dispute\nbetween Ben Jonson and Dekker. A thorough examination of the dramas\nreferring to it shows that Shakspere was even more implicated in\nthis theatrical warfare than Dekker himself.\n\nThe latter wrote a satire entitled 'Satiromastix,' in which he replies\nto Ben Jonson's coarse personal invectives with yet coarser abuse.\n'Hamlet' was Shakspere's answer to the nagging hostilities of the\nquarrelsome adversary, Ben Jonson, who belonged to the party which\nhad brought the philosophical work in question into publicity. And\nthe evident tendency of the innovations in the second quarto of\n'Hamlet,' we make bold to say, convinces us that it must have been\nfar more Shakspere's object to oppose, in that masterly production\nof his, the pernicious influence which the philosophy of the work\nalluded to threatened to exercise on the better minds of his nation,\nthan to defend himself against the personal attacks of Ben Jonson.\n\nThe controversy itself is mentioned in 'Hamlet.' It is a disclosure\nof the poet, which sheds a little ray of light into the darkness in\nwhich his earthly walk is enveloped. The master, who otherwise is\nso sparing with allusions as to his sphere of action, speaks [2]\nbitter words against an 'aery of children' who were then 'in fashion,'\nand were 'most tyrannically clapped for it.' We are further told that\nthese little eyases cry out on the top of the question and so berattle\nthe common stages (so they call them), that many, wearing rapiers,\nare afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither.' The\n'goose-quills' are, of course, the writers of the dramas played by\nthe 'little eyases.' We then learn 'that there was for a while no\nmoney bid for argument' (Shakspere, we see, was not ashamed of honest\ngain) 'unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.'\nLastly, the reproach is made to the nation that it 'holds it no sin to\ntarre them (the children) to controversy.' This satire is undoubtedly--all\ncommentators agree upon this point--directed against the performances of\nthe children who at that time flourished. The most popular of these\njuvenile actors were the Children of Paul's, the Children of the Revels,\nthe Children of the Chapel Royal.\n\nShakspere's remarks, directed against these forward youngsters, may\nappear to us to-day as of very secondary importance in the great drama.\nTo the poet, no doubt, it was not so. The words by which he alludes\nto this episode in his life come from his very heart, and were written\nfor the purpose of reproving the conduct of the public in regard to\nhimself.\n\n'Hamlet' was composed in the atmosphere of this literary feud, from\nwhich we draw confirmatory proof that our theory stands on the solid\nground of historical fact.\n\nEven should our endeavour to finally solve the great problem of\n'Hamlet' be made in vain, we believe we shall at least have pointed\nout a way on which others might be more successful. In contradistinction\nto the manner hitherto in use of drawing conclusions from impressions\nonly, our own matter-of-fact attempt will have this advantage, that the\ntime spent in it will not be wholly wasted; for, in looking round on\nthe scene of that eventful century, we shall become more intimate with\nits literature and the characters of Shakspere's contemporaries.\n\nBefore entering upon the theme itself, it is necessary to cast a rapid\nglance at the condition of the dramatic art of that period.\n\n\n 1: 'Enlarged to almost as much-againe as it was.'\n\n 2: Act ii. sc. 2.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nTHE BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.\n\nTHE STAGE A MEDIUM FOR POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES.\n\nSHAKSPERE'S POLITICAL CREED.\n\nFLORIO'S TRANSLATION OF MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS.\n\nLong before Shakspere, perhaps with fardel on his back, travelled to\nLondon, the stage, not only in the capital, but in the whole country,\nhad begun to exercise its attractive power upon the people's imagination.\n\nIn the year 1586, a Protestant zealot, a soldier, [1] writes:--'When the\nbelles tole to the Lectorer, the trumpetts sound to the Stages, whareat\nthe wicked faction of Rome lawgeth for joy, while the godly weepe for\nsorrowe. Woe is me! the play houses are pestered when the churches are\nnaked. At the one it is not possible to gett a place; at the other voyde\nseates are plentie.... Yt is a wofull sight to see two hundred proude\nplayers jett in their silks where five hundred pore people sterve\nin the streets.'\n\nAlready in the reign of Henry VIII. a 'Master of the Revels' was required,\nwhose task it was to control the public representations and amusements.\nQueen Elizabeth had to issue several special ordinances to define more\nclosely the functions, and provide with fresh power this office, which had\nbeen created by her father.\n\nLike all other great achievements of the English nation, the drama, too,\ndeveloped itself in this country unhampered by foreign influence. Its\nrapid growth was owing to the free and energetic spirit of Englishmen,\nto their love for public life. Every event which in some way attracted\npublic attention, furnished the material for a new ballad, or a new drama.\n\nAmong the dramatists of that time, there was a specially active group\nof malcontents--men of culture, who had been at the colleges and\nuniversities; such as Peel, Greene, Marlowe, Chapman, Marston, Ben\nJonson, and others. If we ask ourselves how it came about that these\ndisciples of erudition turned over to a calling so despised in their\ndays (for the dramatist, with few exceptions, was then mostly held\nin as low a repute as the player), the cause will be found in the\npeculiar circumstances of that epoch.\n\nThe revival of classical studies, and the art of printing, were, in\nthe hands of the peace-loving citizen, fresh means for strengthening\nhis position in the State. The handicraftsman or the merchant, who\nhad gained a small fortune, was no longer satisfied with the modest\nprospects which he could offer to his talented son in an ordinary\nworkshop, or in his narrow store-rooms. Since Rome no longer\nexercised her once all-powerful influence in every walk of life,\nuniversity men, owing to their superior education, saw before them\na brighter, a more hopeful, future.\n\nIn the sixteenth century the number of students in colleges and\nat theuniversities increased in an astonishing degree, especially\nfrom the middle classes. The sons of simple burghers entered upon\nthe contests of free, intellectual aspirations with a zeal mostly\nabsent in those whose position is already secured by birth. At Court,\nno doubt, the feudal aristocracy were yet powerful indeed. They could\napproach their sovereign according to their pleasure; influence him;\nand procure, by artful intrigue, positions of dignity and useful\npreferments for themselves and their favourites. Against these abuses\nthe written word, multiplied a thousandfold, was a new weapon. Whoever\ncould handle it properly, gained the esteem of his fellow-men; and a\nmeans was at his disposal for earning a livelihood, however scanty.\n\nTowards the middle and the end of the sixteenth century there were many\nstudents and scholars possessing a great deal of erudition, but very\nlittle means of subsistence. Nor were their prospects very encouraging.\nThey first went through that bitter experience, which, since then,\nso many have made after them--that whoever seeks a home in the realm\nof intellect runs the risk of losing the solid ground on which the\nfruits for maintaining human life grow. The eye directed towards the\nParnassus is not the most apt to spy out the small tortuous paths of\ndaily gain. To get quick returns of interest, even though it be small,\nfrom the capital of knowledge and learning, has always been, and still\nis, a question of difficult solution.\n\nThese young scholars, grown to manhood in the Halls of Wisdom, were\nunable, and even unwilling, to return to simple industrial pursuits,\nor to the crafty tactics of commerce. Alienated from practical\nactivity, and too shy to take part in the harder struggles of life,\nmany of them rather contented themselves with a crust of bread, in\norder to continue enjoying the 'dainties of a book.' The manlier and\nbolder among them, dissatisfied with the prospect of such poor fare,\nlooked round and saw, in the hands of incapables, fat livings and\nlucrative emoluments to which they, on account of their superior\nculture, believed they had a better claim.\n\nThere were yet many State institutions which by no means corresponded\nto the ideal gathered from Platon, Cicero, and other writers of\nantiquity. Men began expressing these feelings of dissatisfaction\nin ballads and pamphlets. Even as the many home and foreign products\nof industry were distributed by commerce, so it was also the case with\nthese new products of the intellectual workshop, which were carried to\nthe most distant parts of the land. At the side of his other wares, the\npedlar, eager for profit, offered the new and much-desired achievements\nof the Muse to the dwellers in the smallest village, in the loneliest\nfarm.\n\nMoreover, the cunning stationers had their own men, to whom they lent\n'a dossen groates worth of ballads.' If these hucksters--as Henry\nChettle relates--proved thrifty, they were advanced to the position\nof 'prety (petty) chapman,' 'able to spred more pamphlets by the\nState forbidden, then all the bookesellers in London; for only in\nthis Citie is straight search, abroad smale suspition, especially\nof such petty pedlars.' [2]\n\nChettle speaks strongly against these 'intruders in the printings\nmisserie, by whome that excelent Art is not smally slandered, the\ngovernment of the State not a little blemished, nor Religion in the\nleast measure hindred.'\n\nBesides the profit to be derived from the Press by the malcontent\ntravelling scholars, there was yet another way of acquiring the means\nof sustenance and of making use of mental culture; and in it there\nexisted the further advantage of independence from grumbling\npublishers. This was the Stage. For it no great preparations were\nnecessary, nor was any capital required. A few chairs, some boards;\nin every barn there was room. Wherever one man was found who could\nread, there were ten eager to listen.\n\nA most characteristic drama, 'The Return from Parnassus,' depicts\nsome poor scholars who turn away from pitiless Cambridge, of which\none of them says--\n\n  For had not Cambridge been to me unkind,\n  I had not turn'd to gall a milky mind. [3]\n\nAfter having long since completed their studies, they go to London\nto seek for the most modest livelihood. Bitter experience had taught\nthese disciples of learning that the employment for which they waited\ncould only be gained by bribery; and bribe they certainly could not,\nowing to their want of means. Some of them already show a true\nWerther-like yearning for solitude:--\n\n  We will be gone unto the downs of Kent....\n\n  STUDIOSO.\n\n  So shall we shun the company of men,\n  That grows more hateful as the world grows old.\n  We'll teach the murm'ring brooks in tears to flow,\n  And sleepy rocks to wail our passed woe. [4]\n\nAnother utters sentiments of grief, coming near the words of despair\nof Faust. There is a tone in them of what the Germans call\n_Weltschmerz_:--\n\n  Curs'd be our thoughts, whene'er they dream of hope,\n  Bann'd be those haps that henceforth flatter us,\n  When mischief dogs us still and still for aye,\n  From our first birth until our burying day. [5]\n\nIn the difficult choice of a calling which is to save them from need\nand misery, these beggar-students also think of the stage:--\n\n  And must the basest trade yield us relief?\n\nSo Philomusus, in a woebegone tone, asks his comrade Studioso; and\nthe latter looks with the following envious words upon the players\nwhose prospects must have been brighter and more enticing than those\nof the learned poor scholars:--\n\n  England affords those glorious vagabonds,\n  That carried erst their fardles on their backs,\n  Coursers to ride on through the gazing streets,\n  Sweeping it in their glaring satin suits,\n  And pages to attend their masterships:\n  With mouthing words that better wits have framed,\n  They purchase lands, and now esquires are made. [6]\n\nShakspere, as well as Alleyn, bought land with the money earned by\ntheir art. For many, the stage was the port of refuge to which they\nfled from the lonely habitations of erudition, where they--\n\n  ... sit now immur'd within their private cells,\n  Drinking a long lank watching candle's smoke,\n  Spending the marrow of their flow'ring age\n  In fruitless poring on some worm-eat leaf. [7]\n\nMany of these beggar students sought a livelihood by joining the\nplayers. That which the poor scholar had read and learnt in books\nold and new; all that he had heard from bold, adventurous warriors\nand seamen returning from foreign lands or recently discovered\nislands; in short, everything calculated to awaken interest and\napplause among the great mass, was with feverish haste put on the\nstage, and, in order to render it more palatable, mixed with a\ngoodly dose of broad humour.\n\nThe same irreconcilable spirit of the Reformation, which would not\ntolerate any saint's image in the places of worship, also destroyed\nthe liking for Miracle Plays. The tendency of the time was to turn\naway from mysteries and abstract notions, and to draw in art and\npoetry nearer to real life. Where formerly 'Miracles and Moralities'\nwere the delight of men, and Biblical utterances, put in the mouth\nof prophets and saints, served to edify the audience, there the wordy\nwarfare and the fisticuffs exchanged between the Mendicant Friar and\nthe Seller of Indulgences [8] or Pardoner, whose profane doings\nwere satirised on the stage, became now the subject of popular\nenjoyment and laughter. Every question of the day was boldly handled,\nand put in strong language, easily understood by the many, before\na grateful public of simple taste.\n\nThe drama, thus created anew, soon became the most popular amusement\nin the whole country. Every other sport was forgotten over it. In\nevery market town, in every barn, a crowd of actors met. In those\ndays no philosophical hair-splitting was in vogue on the boards.\nEverything was drawn from real life; a breath of freedom pervaded\nall this exuberant geniality. That which a man felt to-day, tomorrow\nhe was able to communicate to his public. The spoken word was freer\nthan the printed one. The latter had to pass a kind of censorship; the\nauthor and the publisher could be ascertained, and be made responsible.\nBut who would be so severe against an extemporised satirical hit,\nuttered perhaps by a clown? Who would, for that sake, be the denouncing\ntraitor?\n\nYet it must not be thought that poets and players could do exactly as\nthey listed. They, too, had their enemies. More especially, the austere\nPuritans were their bitter foes; they never ceased bringing their\ninfluence to bear upon highly-placed persons, in order to check the\ndaring and forward doings of the stage, whose liberty they on every\noccasion wished to see curtailed, and its excesses visited by\npunishment. The ordinary players, if they did not possess licences\nfrom at least two justices of the peace, might be prosecuted, in\naccordance with an old law, as 'rogues and vagabonds,' and subjected\nto very hard sentences. It was not so easy to proceed against the\nbetter class of actors, who, with a view of escaping from the\nchicanery which their calling rendered them liable to, had placed\nthemselves under the protection of the first noblemen, calling\nthemselves their 'servants.' An ordinance of the Privy Council was\nrequired in order to bring actors who were thus protected, before\na court of justice.\n\nNevertheless, these restless people got into incessant conflicts with\nthe authorities. Actors would not allow themselves to be deprived of\nthe right of saying a word on matters of the State and the Church;\nand what did occupy men's minds more than the victory of the\nReformation?\n\nAlready, in the year 1550, Cardinal Wolsey felt bound to cast an author,\nRoo, [9] and 'a fellow-player, a young gentleman,' into prison, because\nthey had put a piece on the stage, the aim of which was to show that\n'Lord Governaunce (Government) was ruled by Dissipation and Negligence,\nby whose misgovernment and evil order Lady Public-Weal was put from\nGovernaunce; which caused Rumor-populi, Inward Grudge, and Disdain of\nWanton Sovereigntie to rise with a great multitude to expel Negligence\nand Dissipation, and to restore Publike-weal again to her estate--which\nwas so done.'\n\nThe reproaches made to the bishops about the year 1544 prove, that the\nstage had already long ago boldly ventured upon the territory of\nreligion, in order to imbue the masses with anti-ecclesiastical\ntendencies. In this connection the following words of an actor,\naddressed to the clerics, are most significant. 'None,' he says,\n'leave ye unvexed and untroubled; no, not so much as the poor\nminstrels and players of interludes. So long as they played lies\nand sang bawdy songs, blaspheming God, and corrupting men's\nconsciences, ye never blamed them, but were very well contented;\nbut since they persuaded the people to worship the Lord aright,\naccording to His holy laws and not yours, ye never were pleased\nwith them.' [10]\n\nThe first Act of Parliament for 'the controul and regulation of stages\nand dramatic representations' was passed in the reign of Henry VIII.\n(1543). Its title is, 'An Act for the Advancement of True Religion\nand the Punishment of the Contrary.'\n\nIn 1552 Edward VI. issued a further proclamation both in regard to the\nstage and the sellers of prints and books; this time mainly from\npolitical reasons.\n\nWhilst poets and players under Henry VIII. and his youthful successor\ncould bring out, without hindrance, that which promoted their ideas of\n'true religion,' they ran great risk, in the reign of Queen Mary, with\nany Protestant tendencies; for, scarcely had this severe queen been a\nmonth on the throne than she issued an ordinance (August 16, 1553)\nforbidding such dramas and interludes as were calculated to spread the\nprinciples and doctrines of the Reformation.\n\nUnder this sovereign, spectacles furthering the Roman Catholic cause\nwere of course favoured. On the other hand, it may be assumed that,\nduring the long and popular reign of Queen Elizabeth, Protestant\ntendencies on the stage often passed the censorship, although from\nthe first years of her government there is an Act prohibiting any\ndrama in which State and Church affairs were treated, 'being no\nmeete matters to be written or treated upon but by men of authoritie,\nnor to be handled before any audience, but of grave and discreete\npersons.'\n\nHowever, like all previous ordinances, proclamations, and Acts of\nParliament, this one also remained without effect. The dramatists\nand the disciples of the mimic art continued busying themselves, in\ntheir customary bold manner, with that which awakened the greatest\ninterest among the public at large; and one would think that at a\ncertain time they had become a little power in the State, against which\nit was no longer possible to proceed in arbitrary fashion, but which,\non the contrary, had to be reckoned with.\n\nOnly such measures, it appears, were afterwards passed which were\ncalculated to harmonise the religious views uttered on the stage with\nthe tenets of the Established Church. This follows from a letter of Lord\nBurleigh, addressed, in 1589, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which\nhe requests him to appoint 'some fytt person well learned in divinitie.'\nThe latter, together with the Master of the Revels and a person chosen\nby the Lord Mayor of the City of London, were to form a kind of\nCommission, which had to examine all pieces that were to be publicly\nacted, and to give their approval.\n\nIt would be an error to believe that this threefold censorship had any\ngreater success than the former measures. The contrary was the case;\nmatters rather became worse. Actors were imprisoned; whereupon they\ndrew up beautiful petitions to their august protectors who brought\nabout their deliverance--that is, until they were once more clapped\ninto prison. Then they were threatened with having their ears and noses\ncut off; [11] but still they would not hold their tongues. We know\nfrom a letter of the French ambassador (1606)--who himself had several\ntimes to ask at the Court of James I. for the prohibition of pieces in\nwhich the Queen of France and Mademoiselle Verneuil, as well as the Duke\nof Biron, were severely handled--that the bold expounders of the\ndramatic art dared to bring their own king on the stage. Upon this\nthere came an ordinance forbidding all further theatrical representations\nin London.\n\nIn the words of the French ambassador:--'I caused certain players to be\nforbid from acting the history of the Duke of Biron. When, however,\nthey saw that the whole Court had left the town, they persisted in acting\nit; nay, they brought upon the stage the Queen of France and Mademoiselle\nde Verneuil.... He (the King) has upon this made order that no play shall\nhenceforth be acted in London; for the repeal of which order they (the\nplayers) have offered 100,000 livres. Perhaps the permission will\nbe again granted, but upon condition that they represent no recent\nhistory, nor speak of the present time.' [12]\n\nFrom this sum--a very large one at that time--the importance of the\ntheatre of those days may be gathered.\n\nThe Corporation of the City of London was among those most hostile to\nall theatrical representations. It exerted itself to the utmost in\norder to render them impossible in the centre of the capital; issuing,\nwith that object, the most whimsical decrees. Trying, on their part,\nto escape from the despotic restrictions, the various players'\ncompanies settled down beyond the boundary of the Lord Mayor's\njurisdiction. The citizens of London, wishing to have their share\nof an amusement which had become a national one, eagerly flocked\nto Bankside, to Blackfriars, to Shoreditch, or across green fields\nto the more distant Newington Butts.\n\nComparatively speaking, very little has come down to us from the\nhey-day of the English drama. That which we possess is but an\nexceedingly small portion of the productions of that epoch. Henslowe's\n'Diary' tells us that a single theatre (Newington Butts) in about\ntwo years (June 3, 1594, to July 18, 1596) brought out not less than\nforty new pieces; and London, at that time, had already more than a\ndozen play-houses. The dramas handed down to us are mostly purged\nof those passages which threatened to give offence in print.\nThe dramatists did not mean to write books. When they went to the\npress at all, they often excused themselves that 'scenes invented\nmerely to be spoken, should be inforcibly published to be read.'\nThey were well aware that this could not afford to the reader the\nsame pleasure he felt 'when it was presented with the soule\nof living action.' [13]\n\nThe stage was the forum of the people, on which everything was expressed\nthat created interest amidst a great nation rising to new life. The\npath towards political freedom of speech was not yet opened in\nParliament; and of our important safety-valve of to-day, the public\npress, there was yet only the first vestige, in the shape of pamphlets\nsecretly hawked about. The stage as rapidly decayed as it had grown,\nwhen the chief interest on which it had thriven for a while--namely,\nthe representation of affairs of public interest--obtained more practical\nexpression in other spheres. In the meantime, however, it remained the\nplatform on which everything could be subjected to the criticism and\njurisdiction of public opinion.\n\nIn Chettle's 'Kind-Harte's Dreame' (1592) the proprietor of a house of\nevil fame concludes his speech with reproaches against actors on\naccount of their spoiling his trade; 'for no sooner have we a tricke\nof deceipt, but they make it common, singing jigs, and making jeasts\nof us, that everie boy can point out our houses as they passe by.'\nAgain, in Ben Jonson's 'Poetaster,' we read that 'your courtier cannot\nkiss his mistress's slippers in quiet for them; nor your white innocent\ngallant pawn his revelling suit to make his punk a supper;' or that\n'an honest, decayed commander cannot skelder, cheat, nor be seen in a\nbawdy house, but he shall be straight in one of their wormwood comedies.'\n[14]\n\nNot less boldly than social affairs were political matters treated; but\nin order to avoid a prosecution, these questions had to be cautiously\napproached in parable fashion. Never was greater cleverness shown\nin this respect than at Shakspere's time. Every poet, every statesman,\nor otherwise highly-placed person, was 'heckled' under an allegorical\nname--a circumstance which at present makes it rather difficult for us\nto fully fathom the meaning of certain dramatic productions.\n\nIn order to attract the crowd, the stage-poets had to present their\ndishes with the condiments of actual life; thus studying more the\ntaste of the guests than showing that of the cook. Prologues and\nEpilogues always appealed more to the public at large as the highest\njudge; its verdict alone was held to be the decisive one.\nManuscripts--the property of companies whose interest it was not\nto make them generally known in print--were continually altered\naccording to circumstances. Guided by the impressions of the public,\nauthors struck out what had been badly received; whilst passages\nthat had earned applause, remained as the encouraging and deciding\nfactor for the future.\n\nAt one time dramas were written almost with the same rapidity as leading\narticles are to-day. Even as our journalists do in the press, so the\ndramatists of that period carried on their debates about certain\nquestions of the day on the stage. In language the most passionate,\nauthors fell upon each other--a practice for which we have to thank them,\nin so far as we thereby gain matter-of-fact points for a correct\nunderstanding of 'Hamlet.'\n\nIn the last but one decennium of the sixteenth century, the first\ndramatists arose who pursued fixed literary tendencies. Often their\ncompositions are mere exercises of style after Greek or Roman models\nwhich never became popular on the Thames. The taste of the English\npeople does not bear with strange exotic manners for any length of\ntime. It is lost labour to plant palm-trees where oaks only can thrive.\nLily and others endeavoured to gain the applause of the mass by words\nof finely-distilled fragrance, to which no coarse grain, no breath\nor the native atmosphere clung. A fruitless beginning, as little\ndestined to succeed as the exertions of those who tried to shine by\npedantic learning and hollow glittering words.\n\nMarlowe's powerful imagination attempts marshalling the whole world, in\nhis booth of theatrical boards, after the rhythm of drumming\ndecasyllabon and bragging blank-verse. In his dramas, great conquerors\npass the frontiers of kingdoms with the same ease with which one steps\nover the border of a carpet. The people's fancy willingly follows\nthe bold poet. In the short space of three hours he makes his\n'Faust' [15] live through four-and-twenty years, in order 'to conquer,\nwith sweet pleasure, despair.' The earth becomes too small for this\ndramatist. Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil, have to respond to\nhis inquiries. Like some of his colleagues, Marlowe is a sceptic:\nhe calls Moses a 'conjurer and seducer of the people,' and boasts\nthat, if he were to try, he would succeed in establishing a\nbetter religion than the one he sees around himself. The apostle of\nthese high thoughts, not yet thirty years old, breathed his last,\nin consequence of a duel in a house of evil repute.\n\nAnother hopeful disciple of lyric and dramatic poetry and prose-writer,\nRobert Greene, once full of similar free-thinking ideas, lay on his\ndeathbed at the age of thirty-two, after a life of dissipation.\nThence he writes to his forsaken wife:--\n\n'All my wrongs muster themselves about me; every evill at once plagues\nme. For my contempt of God, I am contemned of men; for my swearing and\nforswearing, no man will believe me; for my gluttony, I suffer hunger;\nfor my drunkenesse, thirst; for my adulterie, ulcerous sores. Thus God\nhas cast me downe, that I might be humbled; and punished me, for\nexamples of others' sinne.'\n\nGreene offers his own wretched end to his colleagues as a warning\nexample; admonishing them to employ their 'rare wits in more profitable\ncourses;' to look repentingly on the past; to leave off profane\npractices, and not 'to spend their wits in making plaies.' He\nespecially warns them against actors--because these, it seems, had\ngiven him up. His rancorous spite against them he expresses in the\nwell-known words:--'Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart\nCrow, beautified with our feathers, that _with his Tygers heart\nwrapt in a Players hide_, supposes he is as well able to bumbast\nout a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute _Johannes\nFac-totum_, is in his owne conceit the onely 'SHAKE-SCENE in a\ncountrie.'\n\nThis satirical point, directed, without doubt, against Shakspere, is\nthe only thing reliable which, down to the year 1592, we know of his\ndramatic activity. He had then been only about four years in London.\nYet he must already have wielded considerable authority, seeing that\nhe is publicly, though with sneering arrogance, called a complete\nJohannes Fac-totum--a man who has laid himself out in every direction.\n\nIt is the divine mission of a genius to bring order out of chaos, to\nregulate matters with the directing force of his superior glance.\nCertainly, Shakspere, from the very beginning of his activity, sought,\nwith all the energy of his power, to rule out all ignoble, anarchical\nelements from the stage, and thus to obtain for it the sympathies of\nthe best of his time. Fate so willed it, that one of the greatest\nminds which Heaven ever gave to mankind, entered, on this occasion,\nthe modest door of a playhouse, as if Providence had intended showing\nthat a generous activity can effect noble results everywhere, and\nthat the most despised calling (such, still, was that of the actors\nthen) can produce most excellent fruits.\n\nShakspere's life is a beneficial harmony between will and deed; no\nattempt to draw down Heaven to Earth, or to raise up Earth to Heaven.\nHis are rather the ways and manners peculiar to a people which likes\nto adapt itself to given circumstances, to make use of the existing\npractical good, in order to produce from it that which is better.\n\nIt is an ascertained fact that Shakspere, who had received some training\nat school--but no University education--began, at the age of twenty-four,\nto arrange the pieces of other writers, to make modest additions to\nthem; in short, to render them fit and proper for stage purposes. This\nmay have been one of the causes why Greene dubbed him a 'Johannes\nFac-totum.' Others, too, have accused him, during his lifetime, of\n'application' (plagiarism), because he took his subjects mostly from\nother authors. Among those who so charged him, were, as we shall show,\nmore especially Ben Jonson and Marston.\n\nShakspere never allowed himself to be induced by these reproaches to\nchange his mode of working. Down to his death it remained the same.\nIs his merit, on that account, a lesser one? Certainly not: in the\nPoetical Art, in the Realm of Feeling and Thought, there are no\nregular boundary-stones. No author has the right to say: 'Thou must\nnot step into the circle drawn by me; thou hast to do thy work wholly\noutside of it!'\n\nAn author who so expresses an idea, or so describes a situation as to\nfix it most powerfully in men's imagination, is to be looked upon as\nthe true owner or creator of the image: to him belongs the crown.\nThe Greeks reckoned it to be the highest merit of the masters of\ntheir plastic art when they retained the great traits with which their\npredecessors had invested a conception; only endeavouring to better\nthose parts in which a lesser success had been achieved--until that\nsection of the work, too, had attained the highest degree of\nperfection. Thus arose the Jupiter of Pheidias, a Venus of Milo, an\nApollo of Belvedere. Thus the noblest ideal of beauty as created,\nand in this wise the Greek national epic became the model of all\nkindred poetry.\n\nThere is a most characteristic fact which shows how greatly the drama\nhad risen in universal esteem after Shakspere had devoted to it twelve\nyears of his life. It is this. The Corporation of the City of London,\nonce so hostile to all theatrical representations, and which had used\nevery possible chicanery against the stage, had become so friendly to it\ntowards the year 1600, that, when it was asked from governmental\nquarters to enforce a certain decree which had been launched against\nthe theatre, it refused to comply with the request. On the contrary,\nthe Lord Mayor, as well as the other magistrates, held it to be an\ninjustice towards the actors that the Privy Council gave a hearing\nto the charges brought forward by the Puritans. Truly, the feelings\nof this conservative Corporation, as well of a large number of those\nwho once looked down upon the stage with the greatest contempt,\nmust, in the meanwhile, have undergone a great change.\n\nUnquestionably the Company of the Lord Chamberlain--which in summer\ngave its masterly representations in the Globe Theatre, beyond the\nThames, and in winter in Black-Friars--had been the chief agency\nin working that change. The first noblemen, the Queen herself, greatly\nenjoyed the pieces which Shakspere, in fact, wrote for that society;\nbut the public at large were not less delighted with them.\n\nWhen, the day after such a representation, conversation arose in the\nfamily circle as to the three happy hours passed in the theatre, an\nopportunity was given for discussing the most important events of the\npast and the present. The people's history had not yet been written\nthen. Solitary events only had been loosely marked down in dry folios.\nThe stage now brought telling historical facts in vivid colours before\nthe eye. The powerful speeches of high and mighty lords, of learned\nbishops, and of kings were heard--of exalted persons, all different\nin character, but all moved, like other mortals, by various passions,\nand driven by a series of circumstances to definite actions. It was\nfelt that they, too, were subject to a certain spirit of the time,\nthe tendency of which, if the poet was attentively listened to, could\nbe plainly gathered. In this way conclusions might be drawn which shed\nlight even upon the events of the present.\n\nTrue, it was forbidden to bring questions of the State and of religion\nupon the stage. But has Shakspere really avoided treating upon them?\n\nRichard Simpson has successfully shown that Shakspere, in his historical\nplays, carried on a political discussion easily understood by his\ncontemporaries. [16] The maxims thus enunciated by the poet have been\nascertained by that penetrating critic in such a manner that the results\nobtained can scarcely be subjected to doubt any more.\n\nOn comparing the older plays and chronicles of which the poet made use\nfor his historical dramas, with the creations that arose on this basis\nunder his powerful hand, one sees that he suppresses certain tendencies\nof the subject-matter before him, placing others in their stead.\nTaking fully into account all the artistic technicalities calculated to\nproduce a strong dramatic effect, we still find that he has evidently\nmade a number of changes with the clear and most persistent intention\nof touching upon political questions of his time.\n\nIf, for instance, Shakspere's 'King John' is compared with the old play,\n'The Troublesome Raigne,' and with the chronicles from which (but more\nespecially from the former piece) the poet has drawn the plan of\nhis dramatic action, it will be seen that very definite political\ntendencies of what he had before him were suppressed. New ones are\nput in their place. Shakspere makes his 'King John' go through two\ndifferent, wholly unhistorical struggles: _one against a foe at\nhome, who contests the King's legitimate right; the other against\nRomanists who think it a sacred duty to overthrow the heretic_.\nThese were not the feuds with which the King John of history had to\ncontend.\n\nBut the daughter from the unhappy marriage of Henry VIII. and the\nfaithless Anne Boleyn--Queen Elizabeth--had, during her whole lifetime,\nto contend against rebels who held Mary Stuart to be the legitimate\nsuccessor; and it was Queen Elizabeth who had always to remain armed\nagainst a confederacy of enemies who, encouraged by the Pope, made war\nupon the 'heretic' on the throne of England.\n\nThus, in the Globe Theatre, questions of the State were discussed; and\npolitics had their distinct place there. Yet who would enforce the rules\nof censorship upon such language as this:--\n\n  This England never did, and never shall,\n  Lie at the proud feet of a Conqueror\n  But when it first did help to wound itself.\n  ... Nought shall make us rue\n  If England to herself do rest but true?\n\nSuch thoughts were not taken from any old chronicle, but came from the\nvery soul of the age that had gained the great victory over the Armada.\nThey emphasized a newly-acquired independent position, which could only\nbe maintained by united strength against a foreign foe.\n\nEven as 'King John,' so all the other historical plays contain a clearly\nprovable political tendency. Not everything done by the great queen met\nwith applause among the people. Dissatisfaction was felt at the\nprominence of personal favourites, who made much abuse of commercial\nmonopolies granted to them. The burdens of taxation had become heavier\nthan in former times. In 'Richard the Second' a king is produced,\nwho by his misgovernment and by his maintenance of selfish favourites\nloses his crown.\n\nShakspere's sympathies are with a prince whom Nature has formed into a\nstrong ruler; and such an aristocrat of the intellect is depicted in his\n'Henry the Fifth.' In this ideal of a king, all the good national\nqualities attain their apotheosis. This hero combines strength of\ncharacter with justice and bravery. With great severity he examines\nhis own conscience before proceeding to any action, however small.\nWar he makes with all possible humanity, and only for the furtherance\nof civilisation. Nothing is more hated by Shakspere than a government\nof weak hands. From such an unfortunate cause came the Wars of the\nTwo Roses. It seems that, in order to bring this fact home to the\nunderstanding of the people, Shakspere put the sanguinary struggles\nbetween the Houses of York and Lancaster on the stage. (See Epilogue\nof 'King Henry the Fifth.')\n\nMore strongly even than in his plays referring to English history, the\ndeep aversion he felt to divided dominion pierces through his Roman\ntragedies; for in Shakspere the aristocratic vein was not less developed\nthan in Goethe. To him, too, the multitude--\n\n  ...This common body,\n  Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,\n  Goes to, and back, lackeying the varying tide\n  To rot itself with motion. [17]\n\nAs in politics, so also in the domain of religion (of all things the\nmost important to his contemporaries), Shakspere has made his\nprofession of faith. For its elucidation we believe we possess a\nmeans not less sure than that which Richard Simpson has made use of\nfor fixing the political maxims of the great master.\n\n'Hamlet' first appeared in a quarto edition of the year 1603. The\nlittle book thus announces itself:--\n\n'The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke, By William\nShakespeare. As it hath been diverse times acted by his Highnesse\nservants in the Cittie of London: as also in the two Vniversities\nof Cambridge & Oxford, and elsewhere.'\n\nThis drama is different, in most essential traits, from the piece we\nnow possess, which came out a year later (1604), also in quarto edition.\nThe title of the latter is:--\n\n'The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. By William\nShakespeare, Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much-againe as\nit was, according to the true & perfect coppie.'\n\nThe most diverse hypotheses have been started as to the relation between\nthe older 'Hamlet' and the later  one. [18] We share the view of those\nwho maintain that the first quarto edition was a rough-draught, advanced\nto a certain degree, and for which the poet, as is the case with so many\nof his other plays, had used an older play as a kind of model. A\n'rough-draught advanced to a certain degree' may be explained as a\npiece already produced on the stage. The public, always eager to\nsee novelties, allowed the dramatists little time for fully working out\ntheir conceptions. The plays matured, as it were, on the stage itself;\nthere they received their final shape and completion. As mentioned\nbefore, that which had displeased was struck out, whilst the passages\nthat had obtained applause were often augmented, in order to confer\nupon the play the attraction of novelty. 'Enlarged to almost as\nmuch-againe as it was' is an expression which shows that 'Hamlet' had\ndrawn from the very beginning. The poet, thereby encouraged, then worked\nout this drama into the powerful, comprehensive tragedy which we now\npossess.\n\nNow, in closely examining the changes and additions made in the second\n'Hamlet,' we find that most of the freshly added philosophical thoughts,\nand many characteristic peculiarities, have clear reference to the\nphilosophy of a certain book and the character of its author--namely,\nto Michel Montaigne and his 'Essais.' This work first appeared in an\nEnglish translation in 1603, after it had already been entered at\nStationers' Hall for publication in 1599. The cause which may have\ninduced Shakspere to confer upon his 'Hamlet' the thoughts and\nthe peculiarities of Montaigne, and to give that play the shape in which\nwe now have it, will become apparent when we have to explain the\ncontroversy between Jonson and Dekker. We have thus the advantage\nover Simpson's method, that our theory will be confirmed from other\nsources.\n\nMontaigne's 'Essais' were a work which made a strong mark, and created\na deep sensation, in his own country. There, it had already gone through\ntwelve editions before it was introduced in England--eleven years after\nthe death of its author--by means of a translation. Here it found its\nfirst admirers among the highest aristocracy and the patrons of\nliterature and art. Under such august auspices it penetrated into\nthe English public at large. The translator was a well-known teacher\nof the Italian language, John Florio.\n\nFrom the preface of the first book of the 'Essais' we learn that,\nat the request of Sir Edward Wotton, Florio had first Englished one\nchapter, doing it in the house of Lady Bedford, a great lover of art.\nIn that preface, Florio, in most extravagant and euphuistic style,\ndescribes how this noblewoman, after having 'dayned to read it (the\nfirst chapter) without pitty of my fasting, my fainting, my\nlaboring, my langishing, my gasping for some breath ... yet commaunded\nme on'--namely, to turn the whole work into English. It was a heavy\ntask for the poor schoolmaster. He says:--'I sweat, I wept, and I went\non sea-tosst, weather-beaten ... shippe-wrackt--almost drowned.'\n'I say not,' the polite maestro adds, 'you took pleasure at shore'\n(as those in this author, iii. 1). No; my lady was 'unmercifull,\nbut not so cruell;' she ever and anon upheld his courage, bringing\n'to my succour the forces of two deare friends.' One of them\nwas Theodore Diodati, tutor of Lady Bedford's brother, the eldest\nson of Lady Harrington whose husband also was a poet.\n\nThe grateful Florio calls this worthy colleague, 'Diodati as in name,\nso indeed God's gift to me,' and a 'guide-fish' who in this\n'rockie-rough ocean' helped him to capture the 'Whale'--that is,\nMontaigne. He also compares him to a 'bonus genius sent to\nme, as the good angel to Raimond in \"Tasso,\" for my assistant to\ncombat this great Argante.'\n\nThe other welcome fellow-worker was 'Maister Doctor Guinne;' according\nto Florio, 'in this perilous, crook't passage a monster-quelling\nTheseus or Herkules;' aye, in his eyes the best orator, poet,\nphilosopher, and medical man (_non so se meglior oratore e poeta,\no philosopho e medico_), and well versed in Greek, Latin, Italian,\nand French poetry. It was he who succeeded in tracing the many\npassages from classic and modern writers which are strewn all over\nMontaigne's Essays to the divers authors, and the several places\nwhere they occur, so as to properly classify them.\n\nSamuel Daniel, a well-known and much respected poet of that time, and a\nbrother-in-law of Florio, also made his contribution. He opens this\npowerful, highly important work with a eulogistic poem. Florio, in his\nbombastic style, says:--'I, in this, serve but as Vulcan to hatchet\nthis Minerva from that Jupiter's bigge braine.' He calls himself 'a\nfondling foster-father, having transported it from France to England,\nput it in English clothes, taught it to talke our tongue, though many\ntimes with a jerke of French jargon.'\n\nThe 'Essais' consist of three different books. Each of them is\ndedicated to two noblewomen, the foremost of this country. The\nfirst book isdedicated to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, and her mother,\nLady Anne Harrington. The second to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland,\ndaughter of the famous poet Sir Philip Sidney, therefore a near\nrelation of Shakspere's youthful friend, William Herbert, the later\nEarl of Pembroke ('the only begetter' of the 'Sonnets'), whose mother\nalso was a daughter of that much-admired poet.\n\nThe second book is dedicated to the renowned as well as evilly notorious\nLady Penelope Rich, sister of the unfortunate Earl of Essex. She shone\nby her extraordinary beauty as well as by her intellectual gifts. Of\nher Sir Philip Sidney was madly enamoured, but she married a Croesus,\nLord Rich. This union was a most unhappy one. Her husband, a man far\nbelow her in strength of mind, did not know how to value the jewel\nthat had come into his possession. A crowd of admirers flocked around\nher, among whom was William Herbert, much younger in years than herself.\nIt is suspected that Shakspere's last sonnets (127-152) touch upon\nthis connection, with the object of warning the friend against the\ntrue character of that sinful woman.\n\nThe last book is dedicated to Lady Elizabeth Grey, the wife of Henry\nGrey, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and to Lady Mary Nevill,\nthe latter being the daughter of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,\nand wife of Sir Henry Nevill of Abergavenny.\n\nEach of the noblewomen mentioned is praised in a sonnet. No book of\nthat period had such a number of aristocratic sponsors. Yet it was\nof foreign origin, and for the first time a French philosopher had\nappeared in an English version on this side of the Channel. His easy,\nchatty tone must have created no small sensation. The welcome given\nto him by a great number of men is proved by the fact of the 'Essais'\nsoon reaching their third edition, a rare occurrence with a book so\nexpensive as this. [19]\n\nWe will endeavour to sketch the character of Michel Montaigne and his\nwritings. His individuality, owing to the minute descriptions he gives\nof his own self in the Essays, comes out with rare distinctness from\nthe dark environs of his time--more clearly so than the personality\nof any other author, even of that seventeenth century which is so much\nnearer to us.\n\nThis French nobleman devoted the last thirty years of his life to\nphilosophical speculations, if that expression is allowable; for\nfanciful inclination and changing sentiment, far more than strict\nlogic and sound common sense, decided the direction of his thoughts.\nThe book in which he tries to render his ideas is meant to be the\nflesh and blood of his own self. The work and the author--so he\nsays--are to be one. 'He who touches one of them, attacks both.'\nIn the words of Florio's translation, he observes:--'Authors communicate\nthemselves unto the world by some speciall and strange marke, I the\nfirst by my generall disposition as Michael Montaigne; not as a\nGrammarian, or a Poet, or a Lawyer.'\n\nFew writers have been considered from such different points of view as\nMontaigne. The most passionate controversies have arisen about him.\nTheologians have endeavoured to make him one of their own; but the\nmore far seeing ones soon perceived that there was too much scepticism\nin his work. Some sceptics would fain attach him to their own ranks;\nbut the more consistent among them declined the companionship of one\nwho was too bigoted for them. The great mass of men, as usual, plucked,\naccording to each one's taste and fancy, some blossom or leaf from his\n'nosegay of strange flowers,' [20] and then classified him from that\ncasual selection.\n\nMontaigne, a friend of truth, admonishes posterity, if it would judge\nhim, to do so truthfully and justly. With gladsome heart, he says,\nhe would come back from the other world in order to give the lie to\nthose who describe him different from what he is, 'even if it were\ndone to his honour.'\n\nWe shall strive to comply with his wish by drawing the picture of this\nmost interesting, and in his intellectual features thoroughly modern,\nman, from the contours furnished by his own hand. We shall exert\nourselves to lay stress on those characteristics by which he must\nhave created most surprise among his logically more consistent\ncontemporaries on the other side of the Channel.\n\nIn taking up Montaigne's 'Essais' for perusal we are presently under\nthe spell of a feeling as though we were listening to the words of a\nmost versatile man of the world, in whom we become more and more\ninterested. We find in him not only an amiable representative of the\nupper classes, but also a man who has deeply entered into the spirit\nof classic antiquity. Soon he convinces us that he is honestly\nsearching after truth; that he pursues the noble aim of placing\nhimself in harmony with God and the world. Does he succeed in this?\nDoes he arrive at a clear conclusion? What are the fruits of his\nthoughts? what his teachings? In what relation did he stand to his\ncentury?\n\nAs in no other epoch, men had, especially those who came out into the\nfierce light of publicity, to take sides in party warfare during the\nmuch-agitated time of the Reformation. To which party did Montaigne\nbelong? Was he one of the Humanists, who, averse to all antiquated\ndogmas, preached a new doctrine, which was to bring mankind once more\ninto unison with the long despised laws of Nature?\n\nWe hope to show successfully that Shakspere wrote his 'Hamlet' for\nthe great and noble object of warning his contemporaries against the\ndisturbing inconsistencies of the philosophy of Montaigne who preached\nthe rights of Nature, whilst yet clinging to dogmatic tenets which\ncannot be reconciled with those rights.\n\nWe hope to prove that Shakspere who made it his task 'to hold the mirror\nup to Nature,' and who, like none before him, caught up her innermost\nsecrets, rendering them with the chastest expression; that Shakspere,\nwho denied in few but impressive words the vitality of any art or\nculture which uses means not consistent with the intentions of Nature:\n\n  Yet Nature is made better by no mean,\n  But Nature makes that mean; so o'er that art\n  Which, you say, adds to Nature, is an art\n  That Nature makes; [21]--\n\nwe hope to prove successfully that Shakspere, this true apostle of\nNature, held it to be sufficient, ay, most godly, to be a champion\nof 'natural things;' that he advocated a true and simple obedience\nto her laws, and a renunciation of all transcendental dogmas,\nmiscalled 'holy and reverent,' which domineer over human nature,\nand hinder the free development of its nobler faculties.\n\nLet us then impartially examine the character and the work of Montaigne.\nIf we discover contradictions in both, we shall not endeavour to argue\nthem away, but present them with matter-of-fact fidelity; for it is\non those very contradictions that the enigmatic, as yet unexplained,\ncharacter of Hamlet reposes.\n\n\n 1: Collier's _Drama_, i. 265.\n\n 2: _Kind-hartes Dreame_, 1592.\n\n 3: Act v. sc. 4.\n\n 4: Act v sc. 4.\n\n 5: Act iii sc. 5.\n\n 6: _The Return from Parnassus_, act v. sc. I.\n\n 7: _Ibid._, act iv. sc. 3.\n\n 8: _The Pardoner and the Friar_: 1533.\n\n 9: Collier's _Drama_, i. 104.\n\n10: _The Political Use of the Stage in Shakspere's Time_.\n  New Shakspere Society: 1874, ii. p. 371.\n    Henry Stalbrydge, _Epistle Exhortatory_, &c.: 1544.\n\n11: This threat was uttered against Chapman, Ben Jonson, and Marston\n  on account of _Eastward Hoe_.\n\n12: Von Raumer, ii. p. 219.\n\n13: Marston's _Malcontent_: Dedication.\n\n14: Act i. sc. I.\n\n15: It is very characteristic that, in this serious piece also, low\n  humour was still largely employed. In printing--the publisher\n  remarks--the passages in question were left out, as derogatory 'to\n  so honourable and stately a history.'\n\n16: _The Politics of Shakspere's Historical Plays_. New\n  Shakspere Society, ii. 1874.\n\n17: _Antonius and Cleopatra_, act i. sc. 4.\n\n18: We mean the usually received text, seeing that the folio edition\n  of 1623 contains some passages which are wanting in the quarto\n  edition, and _vice vers\u00e2_.\n\n19: Montaigne's _Essays_, which were published in folio, may have\n  had the same price as Shakspere's folio of 1623. The latter was only\n  re-issued in 1632 and 1664, whilst the former came out in new\n  editions in 1613 and 1632.\n\n20: 'Icy un amas de fleur estrangieres, n'y ayant fourny du mien\n  que le filet \u00e0 les lier' (iii. 12).\n\n21: _Winter's Tale_, act iv. sc. 3.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nMONTAIGNE.\n\nMichel Montaigne was favoured by birth as few writers have been. He\nwas the son of a worthy nobleman who gave him, from early childhood, a\nmost carefully conducted education. He never tires in praising\nthe good qualities of his father, who had followed Francis I. to his\nItalian campaigns, and, like that monarch, had conceived a preference\nfor those classical studies which were then again reviving. Even as\nhis king, he, too, wished to promote the new knowledge, and was bent\nupon so initiating young Michel into it as to make him in the fullest\nmanner conversant with the conquests of Greece and Rome in the realm\nof intellect.\n\nIn this, as a practical man who felt the greatest respect for erudition\nwithout personally possessing a proper share of it, he allowed himself\nto be thoroughly guided by 'men of learning and judgment.' He had been\ntold that the only reason why we do not 'attain to the greatness\nof soul and intellect of the ancient Greeks and Romans was the length of\ntime we give to learning these languages which cost them nothing.' In\nbringing up the boy, to whom the best masters were given, the procedures\nchosen were therefore such that young Michel, in his sixth year, spoke\nLatin thoroughly before he was able to converse in his own mother-tongue.\n\nMontaigne relates [1] that he was much more at home on the banks of the\nTiber than on the Seine. Before he knew the Louvre, his mind's eye\nrested on the Forum and the Capitol. He boasts of having always been\nmore occupied with the life and the qualities of Lucullus, of Metellus,\nand Scipio, than with the fate of any of his own countrymen. Of the\nhey-day of classic Rome he, who otherwise uses such measured terms,\nspeaks with a glowing enthusiasm. He often avers that he belongs to\nno special school of thought; that he advocates no theory; that he is\nnot the adherent of any party or sect. To him--so he asserts--an\nunprejudiced examination of all knowledge is sufficient. His endeavour\nwas, to prove the devise of his escutcheon: 'Que s\u00e7ais-je?'\n\nHave the humanistic studies not given to him, as to so many of his\ncontemporaries, a distinctive mental bent? Have Greek and Roman\nphilosophy and poetry remained without any influence upon him? Has\nhis character not been formed by them? Does he not once reckon himself\namong 'nous autres naturalistes?' [2]\n\nOnce only, it is true, he does this; but even if he who would not belong\nto any special school of thought, and who would rather be 'a good\nequerry than a logician,' [3] had not ascribed to himself this\ndesignation, a hundred passages of his work would bear witness to\nthe fact of his having been one of the Humanists, on whose banner\n'Nature' was written as the parole. Ever and anon he says (I here\ndirect attention more specially to his last Essays) that we ought\nwillingly to follow her prescriptions; and incessantly he asserts\nthat, in doing so, we cannot err. He designates her as a guide as\nmild as she is just, whose footprints, blurred over as they are by\nartificial ones, we ought everywhere to trace anew. 'Is it not folly,'\nhe asks with Seneca, [4] 'to bend the body this way, and the mind that\nway, and thus to stand distorted between two movements utterly at\nvariance with each other?'\n\nTo bring up and to guide man in accordance with his capacities, is\nwith him a supreme law. 'Le glorieux chef-d'oeuvre de l'homme,\nc'est de vivre a propos.' He, the sage, is already so much in advance\nof his century that he yearns for laws and religions which are not\narbitrarily founded, but drawn from the roots and the buds of a\nuniversal Reason, contained in every person not degenerate or\ndivorced from nature _desnature_. A mass of passages in the\nEssays strengthen the opinion that Montaigne was an upright,\nnoble-minded Humanist, a disciple of free thought, who wished to\nfathom human nature, and was anxious to help in delivering mankind\nfrom the fetters of manifold superstitions. Read his Essay on Education;\nand the conviction will force itself upon you that in many things he\nwas far in advance of his time.\n\nBut now to the reverse of the medal--to Montaigne as the adherent of\nRomanist dogmas!\n\n'The bond,' he says--and here we quote Florio's translation, [5] only\nslightly changed into modern orthography--'which should bind our\njudgment, tie our will, enforce and join our souls to our Creator,\nshould be a bond taking his doublings and forces, not from our\nconsiderations, reasons, and passions, but from a divine and\nsupernatural compulsion, having but one form; one countenance, and\none grace; which is the authority and grace of God.' The latter, be\nit well understood, are to Montaigne identical with the Church of\nRome, to which he thinks it best blindly to submit.\n\nMen--he observes--who make bold to sit in judgment upon their judges,\nare never faithful and obedient to them. As a warning example he points\nto England, which, since his birth, had already three or four times\nchanged its laws, not only in matters political, in which constancy is\nnot insisted upon, but in the most important matter imaginable--namely,\nin religion. He declares himself all the more ashamed of, and vexed by,\nthis, as his own family were allied by close private ties with the\nEnglish nation.\n\nAn attempt has been made to show [6] that in Montaigne's 'Apologie\nde Raymond Sebond,' in which he expounds his theological opinions\nin the most explicit manner, a hidden attack is contained upon the\nChurch. But it bespeaks an utter misconception of the character of\nthis writer to hold him capable of such perfidious craftiness; for\nhe calls it 'a cowardly and servile humour if a man disguises and\nhides his thoughts under a mask, not daring to let himself be seen\nunder his true aspect.' [7]\n\nWe know of not a few, especially Italian, Humanists who publicly\nmade a deep bow before the altar, whilst behind it they cynically\nlaughed, in company with their friends; making sport of the silly\ncrowd that knelt down in profound reverence. Montaigne was no such\ndouble-dealer. We can fully believe him when he states that it is to\nhim no small satisfaction and pleasure to 'have been preserved from\nthe contagion of so corrupt an age; to have never brought affliction\nand ruin upon any person; not to have felt a desire for vengeance,\nor any envy; nor to have become a defaulter to his word.' [8]\n\nHis word, his honour, were to him the most sacred treasure. He never\nwould have descended so low as to fling them to the winds. Let us,\ntherefore, not endeavour to deny any logical inconsistencies in his\nwritings--inconsistencies which many other men since his time have\nequally shown. Let us rather institute a strict and close inquiry\ninto these two modes of thought of his, which, contradictory as they\nare, yet make up his very character and individuality.\n\nWe can fully believe in Montaigne's sincerity when elsewhere he asserts\nthat we must not travel away from the paths marked down by the Roman\nCatholic Church, lest we should be driven about helplessly and aimlessly\non the unbounded sea of human opinions. He tells us [9] that 'he, too,\nhad neglected the observance of certain ceremonies of the Church,\nwhich seemed to him somewhat vain and strange; but that, when he\ncommunicated on that subject with learned men, he found that these\nthings had a very massive and solid foundation, and that it is only\nsilliness and ignorance which make us receive them with less reverence\nthan the other doctrines of religion.' Hence he concludes that we must\nput ourselves wholly under the protection of ecclesiastical authority,\nor completely break with it.\n\nHe never made a single step to withdraw himself from that authority.\nHe rather prides himself on having never allowed himself, by any\nphilosophy, to be turned away from his first and natural sic\nopinions, and from the condition in which God had placed him; being\nwell aware of his own variability _volubilit\u00e9_. 'Thus I have,\nby the grace of God, remained wholly attached, without internal\nagitation and troubles of conscience, to the ancient beliefs of our\nreligion, during the conflict of so many sects and party divisions\nwhich our century has produced.' [10]\n\nReceiving the holy Host, he breathed his last.\n\nIn the 'Apologie de Raymond Sebond,' Montaigne defends the 'Theologia\nNaturalis' of the latter--a book in which the author, who was a medical\nman, a philosopher, and a theologian, endeavours to prove that the Roman\nCatholic dogmas are in harmony with the laws of nature. That which is\nto be received in full faith, Sebond exerts himself to make\ncomprehensible by arguments of the reason. This book--so Montaigne\nrelates--had been given to his father, at the time when Luther's new\ndoctrines began to be popular, by a man of great reputation for\nlearning, Pierre Bunel, who 'well foresaw, by his penetration, [11]\nthat this budding disease would easily degenerate into an execrable\natheism.' Old Pierre Montaigne, a very pious man, esteemed this work\nvery highly; and a few days before his death, having fortunately found\nit among a lot of neglected papers, commanded his son to translate it\nfrom 'that kind of Spanish jargon with Latin endings,' in which it\nwas written.\n\nMichel, with filial piety, fulfilled his task. He translated the work,\nand in the above-mentioned Essay--the largest of the series--he\nadvocates its philosophy. The essence of this panegyric of the Church\n(for logic would in vain be sought for in that Essay) is: that\nknowledge and curiosity are simply plagues of mankind, and that the\nRoman Catholic religion, therefore, with great wisdom, recommends\nignorance. Man would be most likely to attain happiness if, like\nthe animal, he were to allow himself to be guided by his simple\ninstinct. All philosophising is declared to be of no use. Faith only\nis said to afford security to the weakest of all beings, to man, who\nmore than any other creature is exposed to the most manifold dangers.\nNo elephant, no whale, or crocodile, was required to overcome him who\nproudly calls himself the 'lord of creation.' 'Little lice are\nsufficient to make Sylla give up his dictatorship. The heart and the\nlife of a mighty and triumphant emperor form but the breakfast of a\nlittle worm.' [12] (Compare 'Hamlet,' iv. 3).\n\nMontaigne, who, in his thirty-eighth year, 'long weary of the bondage\nof Court and of public employment, while yet in the vigour of life,\nhath withdrawn himself into the bosom of the Learned Virgins (Doctarum\nVirginum),' [13] so as to be able to spend the rest of his days in\nhis ancestral home, in peaceful, undisturbed devotion to ennobling\nstudies, and to present the world with a new book, in which he means\nto give expression to his innermost thoughts--Montaigne, in his Essay\n'On Prayers,' calls his writings 'rhapsodies,' which he submits\nto the judgment of the Church, so that it may deal with anything he,\n'either ignorantly or unadvisedly, may have set down contrary to the\nsacred decrees, and repugnant to the holy prescriptions of the Catholic,\nApostolic, and Roman Church, wherein I die, and in which I was born.'\n\nLet us not dwell too long on the contradictions of a man who professes\nto think independently, and who yet is content with having a\nmind-cramping dogmatic creed imposed upon him. Let us look at a few\nother, not less irreconcilable, inconsistencies of his logic.\n\nMontaigne, the Humanist, advocates toleration. Justice, he says, is\nto be done to every party, to every opinion. 'Men are different in\nfeeling and in strength; they must be directed to their good, according\nto themselves, and by diverse ways.' [14] He bears no grudge to anyone\nof heterodox faith; he feels no indignation against those who differ\nfrom him in ideas. The ties of universal humanity he values more than\nthose of national connection. He has some good words for the Mexicans,\nso cruelly persecuted by the Spaniards. 'I hold all men to be my\ncompatriots; I feel the same love for a Pole as for a Frenchman.' [15]\n\nBut when we read what the Roman Catholic Montaigne writes, there is a\ndifferent tone:--\n\n'Now that which, methinks, brings so much disorder into our\nconsciences--namely, in these troubles of religion in which we are--is\nthe easy way with which Catholics treat their faith. They suppose they\nshow themselves properly moderate and skilful when they yield to\ntheir adversaries some of the articles that are under debate.\nBut--besides that they do not see what an advantage it is to your\nantagonist if you once begin making a concession, thus encouraging\nhim to follow up his point--it may further be said that the articles\nwhich they choose as apparently the lightest, are sometimes most\nimportant indeed.' [16]\n\nAgain, the humane nobleman who looks with pity and kindliness upon\n'the poor, toiling with heads bent, in their hard work;' he who calls\nthe application of the torture 'a trial of patience rather than of\ntruth'--he maintains that 'the public weal requires that one should\ncommit treachery, use falsehoods, and perform massacres.' [17]\nPersonally, he shrinks from such a mission. His softer heart is not\nstrong enough for these deeds. He relates [18] that he 'never could\nsee without displeasure an innocent and defenceless beast pursued\nand killed, from which we have received no offence at all.' He is\nmoved by the aspect of 'the hart when it is embossed and out of\nbreath, and, finding its strength gone, has no other resource left\nbut to yield itself up to us who pursue it, asking for mercy from us by\nits tears. He calls this 'a deplorable spectacle.'\n\nYet, this sentimental nobleman advocates the commission of treachery\nand cruelty, in the interest of the State, by certain more energetic,\nless timorous men. Nor does he define their functions so as to raise a\nbar against a second St. Bartholomew massacre. A deed of this kind he\nwould submissively take to be an act of Heaven, shirking all\nresponsibility for, or discussion of, anything that 'begins to molest\nhim.' He merely says:--'Like those ancients who sacrificed their lives\nfor the welfare of their country, so they (the guardians of the State)\nmust be ready to sacrifice their honour and their conscience. We who\nare weaker, take easier, less risky parts.' [19]\n\nIn Montaigne, the Humanist, we read that beautiful passage (in his last\nEssay [20]) where he says that 'those who would go beyond human nature,\ntrying to transform themselves into angels, only make beasts of\nthemselves.' [21] Yet, elsewhere [22] he writes that he shall be\nexalted, who, renouncing his own natural means, allows himself to be\nguided by means purely celestial--by which he clearly understands\nthe dogmas of Roman Catholicism.\n\nAs a humanistic thinker, Montaigne fears nothing more than any strivings\nafter transcendentalism. Such yearnings terrify him like inaccessible\nheights. In the life of Sokrates, of that sage for whom he felt a special\npreference, the 'ecstasies and daimons' greatly repel him. Nevertheless,\nMontaigne, the mystic, attributes a great magic power to such daimons;\nfor he says: 'I, too, have sometimes felt within myself an image of such\ninternal agitations, as weak in the light of reason as they were violent\nin instinctive persuasion or dissuasion (a state of mind more ordinary to\nSokrates), by which I have so profitably, and so happily, suffered myself\nto be drawn on, that these mental agitations might perhaps be thought to\ncontain something of divine inspiration.' [23]\n\nMontaigne, the admirer of classic antiquity, says that serving the\nCommonwealth is the most honourable calling. [24] Acts without some\nsplendour of freedom have, in his eyes, neither grace, nor do they merit\nbeing honoured. [25] But elsewhere [26] we come upon his other view,\nless imbued with the spirit of antiquity--namely, that 'man alone,\nwithout other help, armed only with his own weapons, and unprovided with\nthe grace and knowledge of God, in which all his honour, his strength,\nand the whole ground of his being are contained,' is a sorry specimen of\nforce indeed. His own reason gives him no advantage over other\ncreatures; the Church alone confers this privilege upon him!\n\nDuring several years, Montaigne was Mayor of Bordeaux. With great\nmodesty, he relates [27] that in his mere passive conduct lay\nwhatever little merit he may have had in serving his town. This\nfully harmonises with the view expressed in his last but one Essay,\nin which he declares that we are to be blamed for not sufficiently\ntrusting in Heaven; expecting from ourselves more than behoves us:\n'Therefore do our designs so often miscarry. Heaven is envious of\nthe large extent which we attribute to the rights of human wisdom,\nto the prejudice of its own rights; and it curtails ours all the\nmore that we endeavour to enlarge them.' [28]\n\nMontaigne by no means ignores the troublous character of the times\nin which he lived. He often alludes to it. He thinks astrologers cannot\nhave any great difficulty in presaging changes and revolutions near at\nhand:--'Their prophetic indications are practically in our very\nmidst, and most palpable; one need not search the Heavens for that.'\n\n'Cast we our eyes about us' (here again we follow Florio's translation),\n'and in a generall survay consider all the world: all is tottring;\n_all is out of frame_. Take a perfect view of all great states,\nboth in Christendome and where ever else we have knowledge of, and\nin all places you shall finde a most evident threatning of change\nand ruine ... Astrologers may spout themselves, with warning us,\nas they doe of iminent alterations and succeeding revolutions: their\ndivinations are present and palpable, we need not prie into the\nheavens to find them out.' [29]\n\nBut Montaigne, always resigned to the will of God, inactively stands by.\nNot even a manly counsel comes from his lips. He believes he has\nfulfilled his Christian duty by trusting in Heaven for the conduct\nof human affairs, and trying to comfort his fellow-men by the hollow\nwords that he 'sees no cause for despair. Perchance we have not yet\narrived at the last stage. The maintenance of states is most probably\nsomething that goes beyond our powers of understanding.' [30]\n\nMontaigne, the Humanist, says that 'it is an absolute perfection, and,\nas it were, a divine accomplishment for a man to know how to loyally\nenjoy his existence.' The most commendable life for him is 'that which\nadapts itself, in an orderly way, to a common human model, without\nmiracle, and without extravagance.' [31]\n\nBut Montaigne, the Christian, relates that he has 'never occupied\nhimself with anything more than with ideas of death, even at the most\nlicentious time of his youth.' With touching ingenuousness he confesses\nhis weaknesses and his vanities, of which he scarcely dares to think any\nlonger. The descriptions he often gives of himself--such as, 'a dreamer'\n(_songe-creux_), 'soft' (_molle_), 'heavy' (_poisante_), 'pensive,' and so\nforth [32]--prove that he cannot have arrived at a pure enjoyment of\nlife. He questions the happiness of being a husband and father. We\nshall touch upon his views as regards woman, and many other peculiarities\nof his, in the passages of 'Hamlet' referring to them.\n\nIn nothing does Montaigne arrive at any clear conclusion within himself.\nThough he knows how to speak much and well about everything, it is all\nmere _bel esprit_, a display of glittering words, hollow verbiage,\nwhich only lands us in a labyrinth of contradictions, from which we\nseek an issue as vainly as the author himself. Striving, through all his\nlife, to arrive at a knowledge of himself, he at last lays down his arms,\nconsidering the attempt a fruitless and impossible task, and, in his last\nEssay, [33] he makes this avowal:--\n\n'That which in Perseus, the King of Macedon, was remarked as a rare\nthing--viz. that his mind, not settling down into any kind of condition,\nwent wandering through every manner of life, thus showing such flighty\nand erratic conduct that neither he nor others knew what sort of man he\nwas: this seems to me to apply nearly to the whole world, and more\nespecially to one of that ilk whom this description would eminently fit.\nThis, indeed, is what I believe of him (he speaks of himself):--\"No\naverage attitude; being always driven from one extreme to the other by\nindivinable chances; no manner of course without cross-runnings and\nmarvellous controversies; no clear and plain faculty, so that the\nlikeliest idea that could one day be put forth about him will be this:\nthat he affected and laboured to make himself known by the\nimpossibility of really knowing him\" ('qu'il affectoit et estudioit\nde se rendre cogneu par estre mecognoissable').' This is Montaigne\nall over.\n\nIn the British Museum there is a copy of the Essays of Montaigne, in\nFlorio's translation, with Shakspere's name, it is alleged, written\nin it by his own hand, and with notes which possibly may in part have\nbeen jotted down by him. Sir Frederick Madden, one of the greatest\nauthorities in autographs, has recognised Shakspere's autograph as\ngenuine. [34] Whatever disputes may be carried on on this particular\npoint, we think we shall be able to prove that Shakspere about the year\n1600 must have been well acquainted with Montaigne. We shall show\nthat in the first text of 'Hamlet,' which, it is assumed, was\nrepresented on the stage between 1601 and 1602, there are already\nto be found some allusions to Montaigne, especially as far as the\nmiddle of the second and towards the end of the fifth act. In all\nlikelihood, Shakspere knew the 'Essais' even in the original French\ntext or perhaps from the manuscript of the translation which, as\nabove stated, had been begun towards the year 1599; for Shakspere,\nit is to be supposed, had access to the houses of, at least, two\nof the noble ladies to whom the Italian teacher dedicated his\ntranslation.\n\nIn the 'Tempest,' assumed to be of later date than 'Hamlet,' there is\na passage unmistakably taken from Florio's version of Montaigne. [35]\n\nBen Jonson, the most quarrelsome and the chief adversary of Shakspere,\nwas an intimate friend of Florio. When Montaigne, in 'Hamlet'--as\nJonson says--became the target of 'railing rhetoric,' the latter\ntook sides with Florio and his colleagues; launching out against\nShakspere in his comedy, 'Volpone.' This play, as well as an\nIntroduction in which it is dedicated to the two Universities, gives\nus a clue to a great many things otherwise difficult to understand.\n\nA new book, especially a philosophical work like that of Michel\nMontaigne, was then still a remarkable event. [36] To counteract the\npernicious influence which the frivolous, foreign talker threatened to\nexercise, in large circles, through an English translation--this, in\nour opinion, was the object which Shakspere had when touching upon\nground interdicted, as a rule, to the stage--namely, upon questions of\nreligion. We shall find that it was not through any preference for ghost\nand murder scenes that, a year after the second quarto, in 1605,\n'Hamlet' was reprinted--a circumstance occurring with but one other\ndrama of Shakspere; which testifies that this particular play attained\ngreat popularity from its first appearance. [37]\n\nA very instructive insight into the intellectual movement of the great\nReformation epoch here opens itself to us. In this case, also, we shall\ngain the conviction that a true genius takes the liveliest interest in\nthe fate of his own nation, and does not occupy himself with distant,\nabstruse problems (such as fussy metaphysicians would fain philosophise\ninto 'Hamlet'), whilst the times are going out of joint. The greatest\nEnglishman remained, in the most powerful drama of his, within the\nsphere of the questions that agitated his time. In 'Hamlet' he\nidentifies Montaigne's philosophy with madness; branding it as a\npernicious one, as contrary to the intellectual conquests his own\nEnglish nation has made, when breaking with the Romanist dogmas.\n\nWhat sense of duty do Montaigne's Essays promote? What noble deed can\nripen in the light of the disordered and discordant ideas they contain?\nAll they can do is, to disturb the mind, not to clear it; to give rise\nto doubts, not to solve them; to nip the buds from which great actions\nmay spring, not to develop them. Instead of furthering the love for\nmankind, they can only produce despair as to all higher aims and ideals.\n\nIn 'Hamlet,' Shakspere personified many qualities of the complex\ncharacter of Montaigne. Before all, he meant to draw this conclusion:\nthat whoever approaches a high task of life with such wavering\nthoughts and such logical inconsistencies, must needs suffer\nshipwreck. Hamlet's character has only remained an enigma to us for\nso long a time because he is flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood;\n'but, to knew a man well, were to know himself.'\n\n\n 1: Essay III. 9.\n\n 2: Essay III. 12, 235.\n\n 3: _Ibid_. 9.\n\n 4: Essay III. 13 (_Edition Variorum_, par Charles Louandre,\n   Paris; which we always refer to).\n\n 5: The _Essayes, or Morall, Politike, and Millitarie Discourses_\n   of Lo. Michaell de Montaigne, London, 1603, p. 256.\n\n 6: Sainte-Beuve.\n\n 7: Essay II. 17, p. 71.\n\n 8: III. 2, 330.\n\n 9: Essay I. 26, 257.\n\n10: II. 12, 487-8.\n\n11: Montaigne, _Discours de Raison_ (Discourse of Reason). Florio,\n   252.\n\n12: Essay II. 12, 297. Florio, 266.\n\n13: Part of an inscription still legible in Montaigne's castle.\n\n14: Essay II. 12.\n\n15: III. 9.\n\n16: I. 26.\n\n17: Essay III. 1\n\n18: II. 11.\n\n19: III. 1.\n\n20: III. 13.\n\n21: Essay III. 13.\n\n22: II. 12.\n\n23: I. 11.\n\n24: III. 9.\n\n25: _Ibid_.\n\n26: II. 12.\n\n27: Essay III. 10.\n\n28: _Ibid_. 12.\n\n29. Florio, 575.\n\n30: Essay III. 9.\n\n31: III. 13.\n\n32: Essay II. 12.\n\n33: III. 13.\n\n34: _Observations on an Autograph of Shakspere_. London, 1838.\n\n35: This is the passage, which occurs in the _Tempest_, act ii.\n   sc. I:\n\n      '_Gonzalo_.--I' the commonwealth I would by contraries\n      Execute all things: for no kind of traffic\n      Would I admit; no name of magistrate:\n      Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,\n      And use of service, none; contract, succession,\n      Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;\n      No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;\n      No occupation: all men idle, all;\n      And women too.'\n\n   This passage is almost literally taken from Essay I. 30, 'On\n   Cannibals.' We shall later on show Shakspere's reason for giving\n   us this fanciful description of such an Utopian commonwealth.\n\n36: Florio, after enumerating the difficulties he encountered in the\n   translation of the _Essays_, concludes his preface to the\n   courteous reader with the following words:--\n\n   'In summe, if any think he could do better, let him trie, then\n   will he better think of what is done. Seven or eight of great wit\n   and worth have assayed, but found those Essais no attempt for\n   French apprentises or Littletonians. If thus done it may please\n   you, as I wish it may and I hope it shall, and I with you shall be\n   pleased: though not, yet still I am.'\n\n   We learn, from this remark, of what great importance the _Essais_\n   must have been considered in literary circles, and it is not\n   improbable that a few attempts 'of the seven or eight of great wit\n   and worth' may have appeared in print long before Florio's\n   translation. We may well ask: Is it likely that the greatest\n   literary genius of his age should have been unaware of the\n   existence of a work which was considered of such importance that\n   'seven or eight of great wit and worth' thought it worth while to\n   attempt to translate it? Shakspere, who in _King Henry the Fifth_\n   (1599) wrote some scenes in French, must surely have had sufficient\n   knowledge of this language to read it.\n\n37: Besides the quartos of 1603 and 1604, thee were reprints of the\n   latter in 1605 and 1611; also another edition without date.\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nHAMLET.\n\nIn the foregoing sketch of Montaigne our especial object was to point\nout the inconsistency of the French writer in advising us to follow\nNature as our guide, yet at the same time maintaining a strict\nadherence to tenets and dogmas which qualify the impulses and\ninclinations of nature as sinful, and which even declare war against\nthem.\n\nLet us see how Shakspere incarnates these contrasts in the character\nof Hamlet.\n\nHe makes the Danish Prince come back from the University of Wittenberg.\nThere, we certainly may assume, he has become imbued with the new spirit\nthat then shook the world. We refrain from mentioning it by name,\nbecause the designation we now confer upon it has become a lifeless\nword, comprising no longer those free thoughts of the Humanist, for\nwhich Shakspere, in this powerful tragedy, boldly enters the lists.\n\nHamlet longs to be back to Wittenberg. This desire represents his\ninclination towards free, humanistic studies. On the other hand, his\nadherence to old dogmatic views can be deduced from the fact of his\nbeing so terribly impressed by the circumstance of his father having\nhad to die\n\n  Unhousel'd, disappointed, unaneled;\n\na fact recorded with a threefold outcry:--\n\n  Oh, horrible! Oh, horrible! most horrible!\n\nAgain, we must direct the reader's attention to this very noteworthy\npoint, that the first quarto edition of 'Hamlet' was already worked out\ntolerably well as far as the middle of the second act. For the completion\nof this part, only a few details were necessary. From them, we must all\nthe more be enabled to gather Shakspere's intention.\n\nIn the speech of the Ghost in the second quarto--otherwise of well-nigh\nidentical contents with the one in the first edition--there is only\none new line, but one which deserves the closest consideration.\nIt is that which we have quoted--\n\n  Unhousel'd, disappointed, unaneled.\n\nThe effect this statement has on the course of the dramatic action we\nshall explain later on. In act iii. sc. 3, where Hamlet's energy is\nparalysed by this disclosure of the Ghost, we afterwards again come upon\na short innovation, and a most characteristic one, though but consisting\nof two lines.\n\nIn the first quarto we see Hamlet, in the beginning of the play,\nseized with an unmanly grief which makes him wish that heaven and\nearth would change back into chaos. But a new addition to this\nweariness of life is the contempt of all earthly aspirations: the\naversion to Nature as the begetter of sin. The following passages\nare not to be found in the first quarto:--\n\n  Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd\n  His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!\n  How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable\n  Seem to me all the uses of this world!\n  Fie on't! Ah fie! 't is an unweeded garden,\n  That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature\n  Possess it merely.\n\nThe scene between Hamlet and Horatio (act i. sc. 4), which in both\ntexts is about the same, contains an innovation in which the Prince's\nmistrust of nature is even more sharply expressed. These lines are new:--\n\n  This heavy-headed revel east and west\n  Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations--\n\nas far as--\n\n  ... The dram of eale (evil)\n  Doth (drawth) all the substance of a doubt\n  To his own scandal.\n\nThe contents of this interpolated speech may concisely be thus given:\nthat the virtues of man, however pure and numerous they may be, are\noften infected by 'some vicious mole of Nature,' wherein he himself\nis guiltless; and that from such a fault in the chance of birth a stamp\nof defect is impressed upon his character, and thus contaminates the\nwhole.\n\nThese innovations are evidently introduced for the purpose of making\nus understand why Hamlet does not trust to the excitements of his own\nreason and his own blood, in order to find out by natural means whether\nit be true what his 'prophetic soul' anticipates--namely, that his\nuncle may 'smile and smile, and yet be a villain.'\n\nMan, says Montaigne, has no hold-fast, no firm and fixed point, within\nhimself, in spite of his apparently splendid outfit. [1]\n\nMan can do nothing with his own weapons alone without help from outside.\nIn the Essay 'On the Folly of Referring the True and the False to the\nTrustworthiness of our Judgment,' [2] he maintains that 'it is a\nsilly presumption to go about despising and condemning as false that\nwhich does not seem probable to us; which is a common fault of those who\nthink they have more self-sufficiency than the vulgar. So was I formerly\nminded; and if I heard anybody speak either of ghosts coming back, or of\nthe prophecy of coming things, of spells, of witchcraft, or of any other\ntale I could not digest--\n\n  Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,\n  Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Thessala--\n\nI felt a kind of compassion for the poor people who were made the\nvictims of such follies. And now I find that I was, at least, to be\nas much pitied myself.... Reason has taught me that, so resolutely\nto condemn a thing as false and impossible, is to boldly assume that\nwe have in our head the bounds and limits of the will of God and of\nour common mother, Nature; and I now see that there is no more notable\nfolly in the world than to reduce them to the measure of our capacity\nand of our self-sufficient judgment.' [3]\n\nNot less weak than Montaigne's trust in human reason is that of Hamlet\nwhen he fears 'the pales and forts of reason' may be broken down--\n\n  by the o'ergrowth of some complexion.\n\nWith such a mode of thought it is not to be wondered at that he should\nwelcome the first occasion when the task of his life may be revealed\nto him by a heavenly messenger. Hoping that 'the questionable shape'\nwould not let him 'burst in ignorance,' but tell him why 'we fools of\nNature so horridly shake our disposition with thoughts beyond the\nreaches of our souls,' he follows the spectral apparition. Good Horatio\ndoes his best to restrain his friend, who has waxed 'desperate with\nimagination,' from approaching the 'removed ground,' that might deprive\nhim of the 'sovereignity of reason,' and whither the Ghost beckons him.\n\nHere there are several new lines:--\n\n  Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff....\n  The very place puts toys of desperation,\n  Without more motive, into every brain\n  That looks so many fathoms to the sea,\n  And hears it roar beneath.\n\nHere we have one of those incipient ecstasies of which Montaigne says\nthat 'such transcending humours affright me as much as _steep,\nhigh, and inaccessible places_.' [4]\n\nIn the following scene between Hamlet and the Ghost the introduction is\nnew:--\n\n  _Ghost_. My hour is almost come,\n  When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames\n  Must render up myself.\n  _Hamlet_. Alas, poor ghost!\n  _Ghost_. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing\n  To what I shall unfold.\n  _Hamlet_. Speak; I am bound to hear.\n  _Ghost_. So art thou to revenge, when thou shall hear.\n\nThis picturing of the torments of hell--how very characteristic! It\nis forbidden to the Ghost to communicate to 'ears of flesh and blood'\nthe secrets of its fiery prison-house. Yet it knows how to tell enough\nof the horrors of that gruesome place to make the hair of a stronger\nmortal than Hamlet is, stand on end, 'like quills upon the fretful\nporcupine.'\n\nWith masterly hand, the poet depicts the distance which henceforth\nseparates Hamlet's course of thought from that of his friends who have\nremained on the firm ground of human reason. Hamlet cannot say more\nthan--\n\n  that there's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark\n  But he's an arrant knave.\n\nWhen Horatio answers that 'there needs no ghost, my lord, come from\nthe grave to tell us this,' [5] Hamlet asks his friends to shake hands\nwith him and part, giving them to understand that every man has his\nown business and desire, and that--\n\n  for my own poor part,\n  Look you, I'll go pray.\n\nHoratio calls this 'wild and whirling words.' The Prince who at this\nmoment, no doubt, expresses his own true inclination, says:--'I am\nsorry they offend you--heartily; yes, 'faith, heartily.' It is difficult\nfor him to justify his own procedure. He feels unable to explain\nhis thoughts and sentiments to the clear, unwarped reason of a Horatio,\nto whom the Ghost did not reply, and to whom no ghost would.\n\nHamlet assures his friend, for whose sympathy he greatly cares, that\nthe apparition is a true one, an honest ghost. He advises Horatio to\ngive the 'wondrous strange' a welcome even as to 'a stranger;' and,\nlest he might endeavour to test the apparition by human reason, he speaks\nthe beautiful words:--\n\n  There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,\n  Than are dreamt of in your philosophy\n\nHamlet tells his friends that in future he will put on 'an antic\ndisposition.' Towards them he has, in fact, already done so. His desire\nfor a threefold oath; his repeated shifting of ground; his swearing\nby the sword on which the hands are laid (a custom referable to the\ntime of the Crusades, and considered tantamount to swearing by the\ncross, but which, at the same time, is an older Germanic, and hence\nDanish, custom); his use of a Latin formula, _Hic et ubique_--all\nthese procedures have the evident object of throwing his comrades into\na mystic frame of mind, and to make them keep silence ('so help you\nmercy!') as to what they have seen. These are the mysterious means\nwhich those have to use that would make themselves the medium of a\nmessage supernaturally revealed. [5]\n\nA perusal of the fifty-sixth chapter of the first Essay of Montaigne\nwill show with what great reverence he treated ceremonial customs\nand hollow formulas; for instance, the sign of the cross, of which he\n'continually made use, even if he be but yawning' (_sic_). It is\nnot a mere coincidence, but a well-calculated trait in the character of\nHamlet, that in his speech he goes through a scale of exclamations and\nasseverations such as Shakspere employs in no other of his poetical\ncreations. Hamlet incessantly mentions God, Heaven, Hell, and the\nDevil, the Heavenly Hosts, and the Saints. He claims protection from\nthe latter at the appearance of the Ghost. He swears 'by St. Patrick,'\nby his faith, by God's wounds, by His blood, by His body, by the\nCross, and so forth. [6]\n\nStubbs, in his 'Anatomy of Abuses' (1583), [7] lays stress, among other\ncharacteristics of the Papists, upon their terrible inclination to\nswearing: 'in so muche, as if they speake but three or fower words,\nyet must thei needes be interlaced with a bloudie othe or two, to the\ngreat dishonour of God and offence of the hearers.'\n\nAn overwhelming grief and mistrust in his own nature filled Hamlet's\nbold imagination with the desire of receiving a complete mandate\nfor his mission from the hands of superior powers. So he enters the\nrealm of mysticism, where mind wields no authority, and where no\nsound fruit of human reason can ripen.\n\nBetween the first and the second act there is an interval of a few\nmonths. The poet gives us no other clue to the condition and the\ndoings of his hero than that, in the words of Polonius, [8] he 'fell\ninto sadness; then into a fast; thence to a watch; thence into a\nweakness,' and so forth. We may therefore assume that he has followed\nhis inclination to go to pray; that he tries by fasting, watching,\nand chastising, as so many before him, to find his way in the dreamland\nwhich he has entered following the Ghost; sincerely striving to remain\ntrue to his resolution to 'wipe from the table of his memory all\npressures past.'\n\nA new passage in the monologue of Hamlet, after the Ghost has left him,\nis this:--\n\n  And thy commandment all alone shall live\n  Within the book and volume of my brain,\n  Unmix'd with baser matter; yes, by Heaven!\n  O most pernicious woman!\n\nWe next hear about the Prince from Ophelia after the interval which, as\nmentioned above, lies between the first and the second act. [9] In the\nold play she relates that, when 'walking in the gallery all alone,' he,\nthe lover, came towards her, altogether 'bereft of his wits.' In the\nscene of the later play he comes to her closet with a purpose, appearing\nbefore her in a state of mental struggle. No doubt, he then approaches\nher with the intention, which afterwards he carries out, of renouncing\nwoman, the begetter of all evil in the world, which makes such monsters\nof wise men. The sight of his true love has shaken him. He stands before\nher: [10]\n\n  ... with a look so piteous in purport\n  As if he had been loosed out of hell\n  To speak of horrors...\n  And thrice his head thus waving up and down,\n  He raised a sigh so piteous and profound\n  As it did seem to shatter all his bulk\n  And end his being.\n\nThus he leaves her, not daring to speak the word which is to separate him\nfrom her.\n\nIn the following scene between Hamlet and Polonius (act ii. sc. 2 [11])\nthere is again a new passage which equally proves that Hamlet's thoughts\nonly dwell upon one theme; that is, the sinfulness of our human nature:--\n\n    _Hamlet_. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a\n    god, kissing carrion--Have you a daughter?\n    _Polonius_. I have, my lord.\n    _Hamlet_. Let her not walk i' the sun. Conception is a blessing;\n    but not as your daughter may conceive:--friend, look to't.\n\nHamlet said before, that 'To be honest, is to be one man picked out of\nten thousand.' There is method in Hamlet's madness. With correct logic\nhe draws from dogmas which pronounce Nature to be sinful, the conclusion\nthat we need not wonder at the abounding of evil in this world, seeing\nthat a God himself assists in creating it. He, therefore, warns Polonius\nagainst his daughter, too, becoming 'a breeder of sinners.'\n\nBefore we follow Hamlet now to the scene with Ophelia, where, 'in an\necstasy of divine inspiration, equally weak in reason, and violent in\npersuasion and dissuasion,' [12] he calls upon her to go to a nunnery,\nwe must direct attention to the concluding part of an Essay [13] of\nMontaigne. It is only surprising that nobody should as yet have pointed\nout how unmistakeably, in that famous scene, the inconsistencies of the\nwhimsical French writer are scourged. In that Essay the following thought\noccurs, which one would gladly accept as a correct one: 'Falsely do we\njudge the _honesty_ and the _beauty_ of an action from its usefulness.\nEqually wrong it is to conclude that everyone is bound to do the\nsame, and that it is an honest action for everybody, if it be a\nuseful one.'\n\nNow, Montaigne endeavours to apply this thought to the institution of\nmarriage; and he descends, in doing so, to the following irrational\nargument:--'Let us select the most necessary and most useful institution\nof human society: _it is marriage_. Yet the counsel of the saints\ndeems the contrary side to be more _honest_; thus excluding the most\nvenerable vocation of men.'\n\nThe satire of that famous scene in 'Hamlet' is here apparent. It will\nnow be understood why the Danish Prince comes with a warning to his\nbeloved, 'not to admit _honesty_ in discourse with _beauty_,' and why\nhis resolution is that 'we will have no more _marriage_.' Those words\nof Hamlet, too, '_this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives\nit proof_,' are easy of explanation. It was not yet so long ago that\ncelibacy had been abolished in England. The 'time' now confirms\ncelibacy once more in this French book.\n\nMost characteristic is the following passage: in this scene the only new\none. It goes far to show the intention with which the poet partly\nre-wrought the play. I mean the words in which Hamlet confesses to\nOphelia that he has deceived her. The repentant sinner says: '_You\nshould not have believed me: for virtue cannot so inoculate our old\nstock but we shall relish of it_.'\n\nCan a poet who will not convert the stage into a theological Hall of\nControversy, make the soul-struggle of his hero more comprehensible?\nHamlet has honestly tried (we have seen with what means) to inoculate\nand improve the sinful 'old stock.' But how far away he still feels\nhimself from his aim! He calls himself 'proud, revengeful, ambitious.'\nThese are the three sins of which he must accuse himself, when listening\nto the voice of Nature which admonishes him to fulfil the duty of his\nlife--the deed of blood--that inner voice of his nobler nature which\nimpels him to seize the crown in order to guide the destinies of his\ncountry; given over, as the latter is, to the mischievous whims of a\nvillain.\n\nYet he cries out against Ophelia, 'We are arrant knaves all; believe\nnone of us!' He reproaches this daughter of Eve with her own weaknesses\nand the great number of her sins in words reminding us of Isaiah, [14]\nwhere the wantonness of the daughters of Zion is reproved. He, the\nascetic, calls out to his mistress: 'Go thy ways to a nunnery!... Why\nwouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?'\n\nLet us hear what his mistress says about him. This passage also,\nexplaining Hamlet's madness, is new:--\n\n  Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,\n  Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;\n  That unmatched form and feature of blown youth,\n  Blasted with ecstasy. [15]\n\nWith what other word can Hamlet's passionate utterances be designated\nthan that of religious ecstasy?\n\nFrom the first moment when he sees Ophelia, and prays her to remember\nhis sins in her 'orisons,' down to the last moment when he leaves her,\nbidding her to go to a nunnery, there is method in his madness--the\nmethod of those dogmas which brand nature and humanity as sinful,\nwhose impulses they do not endeavour to lead to higher aims, but which,\nby certain mysteries and formulas, they pretend to be able to overcome.\nThe soul-struggle of Hamlet arises from his divided mind; an inner\nvoice of Nature calling, on the one hand:--\n\n  Let not the royal bed of Denmark be\n  A couch for luxury and damned incest;\n\nwhilst another voice calls out that, howsoever he pursues his act, he\nshould not 'taint his mind.'\n\nIn the English translation of the 'Hystorie of Hamblet,' from which\nShakspere took his subject, the art of dissembling is extolled, in\nmost naive language, as one specially useful towards great personages\nnot easily accessible to revenge. He who would exercise the arts of\ndissembling (it is said there) must be able to 'kisse his hand whome\nin hearte hee could wishe an hundredfoot depth under the earth, so hee\nmighte never see him more, if it were not a thing _wholly to bee\ndisliked in a Christian, who by no meanes ought to have a bitter\ngall, or desires infected with revenge_.'\n\nWe shall find later on that Hamlet's gall also claims its rights; all\nthe more so as he endeavours, by an unnatural and superstitious use of\ndogmatism, to suppress and to drive away the 'excitements of the reason\nand of the blood.' We have heard from Polonius that the Prince,\nafter his 'sadness,' fell into a 'fast.' And everything he says to\nhis schoolfellows Rosencrantz and Guildenstern [16] about his frame of\nmind, confirms us in the belief that he has remained faithful to the\nintention declared in the first act--'Look you, I will go pray'--so\nas to prepare himself, like many others, to contemplate passively\na world sinful from its very nature, and therefore not to be changed\nand bettered.\n\nThis scene is, in the first quarto, a mere hasty sketch, but faintly\nindicated. In the second quarto it is, so to say, a new one; and a\ncomparison between the two need, therefore, not be instituted.\n\nBefore his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet, for a few\nmoments, gives up his brain-racking thoughts of penitence; he even\nendeavours to philosophise, as he may have done at the University\nof Wittenberg before he allowed himself to be lured into dreamland.\nHe utters a thought--'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking\nmakes it so'--which occurs in an Essay of Montaigne, and is thus given\nby Florio (127):--\n\n'If that what we call evil and torment be neither torment nor evil,\nbut that our fancy only gives it that quality, is it in us to change\nit?' [17]\n\nHamlet then pictures his mental condition in words of deepest sincerity.\nIn order to fully understand this description, we have once more to\nrefer to an Essay of Montaigne, [18] in which he asserts that man is\nnot furthered by his reason, his speculations, his passions; that\nthey give him no advantage over other creatures. A divinely appointed\nauthority--the Church--confers upon him 'those great advantages and\nodds he supposes to have over other creatures.' It is she that seals\nto him the patent and privilege which authorises him to 'keep account\nboth of the receipts and layings-out of the world.' Ay, it is she who\nconvinces him that '_this admirable swinging-round of the heavenly\nvaults, the eternal light of those constellations rolling so nobly over\nour heads_, the terrible commotions of this infinite ocean, were\nestablished, and have continued for so many ages, for his advantage and\nhis service.' To her authority he must wholly surrender himself; by her\nhe must allow himself to be guided. And in doing so, it is 'better for\nus to have a weak judgment than a strong one; better to be smitten with\nblindness than to have one's eyes open and clear-sighted.'\n\nStriving to live up to similar views, Hamlet 'lost all his mirth.'\nThis is the cause of his heavy disposition; of his having 'foregone\nall custom of exercise'--so 'that this goodly frame, the earth,' seems\nto him 'a sterile promontory,' a mere place of preparation for gaining\nthe next world through penance and prayer. Verily, '_this brave\no'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden\nfire_,' appears to him no better 'than a foul and pestilent\ncongregation of vapours.' Quite in accordance with such tenets which\nwe need not qualify by name, Man, to him, is but a 'quintessence of\ndust.'\n\nBoth man, and still more sinful woman, displease Hamlet. Yet he has\nnot succeeded in so wholly subjugating Nature within himself as to be\nfully secured against her importunate claims. Now we would point out\nhere that Montaigne [19] mentions a tyrant of antiquity who 'could not\nbear seeing tragedies acted in the theatre, from fear that his subjects\nshould see him sob at the misfortunes of Hecuba and Andromache--him\nwho, without pity, caused daily so many people to be cruelly killed.'\nAgain, Montaigne [20] speaks of actors, mentioned by Quinctilian, who\nwere 'so deeply engaged in a sorrowful part that they wept even after\nhaving returned to their lodgings;' whilst Quinctilian reports of\nhimself that, 'having undertaken to move a certain passion in others,\nhe had entered so far into his part as to find himself surprised, not\nonly with the shedding of tears, but also with a paleness of countenance\nand the behaviour of a man truly weighed down with grief.'\n\nHamlet has listened to the player. In the concluding monologue of the\nsecond act--which is twice as long in the new quarto--we are told of the\neffect produced upon his mind when seeing that an actor, who merely holds\na mirror up to Nature--\n\n  ... but in a fiction, in a dream of passion,\n  Could force his soul so to his own conceit\n  That from her working all his visage wann'd....\n  ... And all for nothing!--For Hecuba?\n\nwhilst he (Hamlet), 'a dull and muddy-mettled rascal,' [21] like\nJohn-a-dreams, in spite of his strong 'motive and the cue for passion,'\nmistrusts them and is afraid of being guided by them.\n\nAll at once, Hamlet feels the weight and pressure of a mode of thought\nwhich declares war against the impulses of Nature, calling man a born\nsinner.\n\n  Who calls me villain? ...\n  ... Gives me the lie i' the throat,\n  As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?\n  Ha!\n  'S wounds,[1] I should take it: for it cannot be.\n  But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall\n  To make oppression bitter; or ere this\n  I should have fatted all the region kites\n  With this slave's offal. [22]\n\nThe feelings of Hamlet, until then forcibly kept down, now get the\nmastery over him. He gives vent to them in oaths of which he is himself\nat last ashamed, when he compares himself to 'a very drab, a scullion,'\nwho 'must fall a-cursing.'\n\nHe now will set to work and get more natural evidence of the King's\nguilt. He begins to entertain doubts as to those mystic views by\nwhich he meant to be guided. He mistrusts the apparition which he\nhad called an honest ghost ('true-penny'):--\n\n  The spirit that I have seen\n  May be the Devil: and the Devil hath power\n  To assume a pleasing shape. Yea, perhaps\n  Out of my weakness and my melancholy,\n  As he is very potent with such spirits,\n  Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds\n  More relative than this. [23]\n\nOver weakness the Devil is potent; all flesh is weak. What mode of\nthought is this? What philosophy taught this doctrine? Hamlet's\nweakness, if we may believe Polonius, [24] has been brought on by\nfasting and watching.\n\nOver melancholy, too, the Devil is powerful. Are we not here in the\nsombre atmosphere of those who turn away their reason from ideal\naspirations; who denounce the impulses of nature as sinful excitements;\nwho would fain look upon the earth as 'a sterile promontory'--having\ndark death more before their mind's eye than beautiful life? Are\nsuch thoughts not the forerunners of melancholy?\n\nHamlet's incessant thoughts of death are the same as those of his\nmodel, Montaigne. In an Essay, [25] entitled 'That to Philosophise\nis to Learn how to Die,' the latter explains that the Christian\nreligion has no surer basis than the contempt for the present life,\nand that we are in this world only to prepare ourselves for death.\nHis imagination, he says, has occupied itself with these thoughts\nof death more than with anything else. Referring to a saying of\nLykurgos, he approves of graveyards being laid out close to churches\nand in the most frequented places of a city, so as to accustom the\ncommon people, women, and children not to be scared at the sight of\na dead person, and to forewarn everyone, by this continual spectacle\nof bones, tombs, and funerals, as to our real condition.\n\nMontaigne also, like Hamlet, ponders over suicide. He devotes a whole\nEssay [26] to it. Life, he observes, would be a tyranny if the liberty\nto die were wanting. For this liberty, he thinks, we have to thank\nNature, as for the most favourable gift which, indeed, deprives us\nof all right to complain of our condition. If--as Boiocal, the German\nchieftain, [27] said--earth is wanting to us whereon to live, earth\nis never wanting to us for death. [28]\n\nThat is the wisdom of Montaigne, the admirer of antiquity. But\nMontaigne, the modern man, introduces the Essay in which he dares to\nutter such bold thoughts with the following restriction:--\n\n'If, as it is said, to philosophise be to doubt, with much more reason\nto play pranks (_niaiser_) and to rave, as I do, must be to doubt.\nFor, to inquire and to discuss, behoves the disciples. The decision\nbelongs to the chairman (_cath\u00e9drant_). My chairman is the\nauthority of the divine will which regulates us without contradiction,\nand which occupies its rank above those human and vain disputes.'\nThis chairman, as often observed, by which Montaigne's thoughts are\nto be guided, is an ecclesiastic authority.\n\nIn 'Hamlet,' also, it is a 'canon' [29] fixed against self-slaughter,\nwhich restrains him from leaving, out of his own impulse, this whilom\nparadise, this 'unweeded garden' of life.\n\nMontaigne, whose philosophy aims at making us conversant with death\nas with a friend, is yet terrified by it. Altogether, he says, he would\nfain pass his life at his ease; and if he could escape from blows,\neven by taking refuge under a calf's skin, [30] he would not be the\nman who would shrink from it.\n\nIn a few graphic words Shakspere brands this cowardly clinging to life.\nIn the scene where Hamlet gives to Polonius nothing more willingly\nthan his leave, the new quarto (in every other respect the conclusion\nof this scene is identical in both editions) contains these additional\nwords:--'Except my life, except my life, except my life.' Of the 'calf's\nskin' we hear in the first scene of act v., where those are called sheep\nand calves, who seek out assurance in parchments which are made of\nsheep-skins and of calves-skins too.\n\nMontaigne, who does not cease pondering over the pale fellow, Death,\nlooks for consolation from the ancients. He takes Sokrates as the\nmodel of all great qualities; and he reproduces, in his own manner,\nthe speech this sage, who was fearless of death, made before his\njudges. First of all, he makes him say that the qualities of death\nare unknown to him, as he has never seen anybody who could instruct\nhim in them. 'Those who fear death, presuppose that they know it....\nPerhaps death may be an indifferent thing; perhaps a desirable one.\nHowever, one may believe that, if it be a transmigration from one\nplace to another, it will be an amelioration ... and free us from\nhaving any more to do with wicked and corrupt judges. If it be a\nconsummation (_an\u00e9antissement_) [31] of our being, it is also\nan amelioration to enter into a long and quiet night. We find nothing\nso sweet in life as a quiet rest--a tranquil and profound sleep without\ndreams.'\n\nNow compare the monologue, 'To be or not to be,' of the first quarto\nwith the one contained in the second. It will then be seen that those\nSokratic ideas, rendered by Montaigne in his own manner, have been\nworked into the first quarto. In the latter we hear nothing at all\nabout the end of our being (a complete destruction or _consummation_)\nproducing an amelioration. [32] Shakspere expresses this thought by\nthe words that if we could say that, by a sleep, we 'end the heartache\nand the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to--'tis a consummation\ndevoutly to be wished.' [33]\n\nKeen commentators have pointed out the contradiction in Hamlet's\nmonologue, where he speaks of--\n\n  The undiscovered country from whose bourn\n  No traveller returns,\n\nwhilst he saw such a traveller in his father's ghost. Certainly there\nwere then, even as there are now, besides the logical thinkers, also\na considerable number of inconsistent persons who believed in\nsupernaturally revealed messages, and who, nevertheless, now and then,\nfelt contradictory thoughts rising within themselves. Why should the\ngreat master, who exhausted in his dramatic personages almost all\ntypes of human nature, not have put such a character also on the stage?\n\nTo the poet, whose object it was to show 'to the very age and body of\ntime his form and pressure' (this passage is wanting in the first\nquarto), the presentation of such a psychological problem of\ncontradictory thoughts must have been of far greater attraction than\nan anticipatory description of a metaphysician aching under the heavy\nburden of his philosophic speculations. The latter is the character\nattributed, by some, to Hamlet. But we think that such an utterly\nstrange modern creature would have been altogether incomprehensible\nto the energetic English mind of this period.\n\nIn the course of the drama, Shakspere makes it sufficiently clear that\nthe thoughts by which Hamlet's 'native hue of resolution is sicklied\no'er,' have come from the narrow cells of a superstitious Christianity,\nnot from the free use of his reason. According to Montaigne, however,\nwe ought to 'use our reason only for strengthening our belief.'\n\nHamlet, with Purgatory and Hell, into which he has cast a glance,\nbefore his eyes, would fain fly, like Montaigne, from them. In his\nEssay I. 19 [34] the latter says that our soul must be steeled against\nthe powers of death; 'for, as long as Death frightens us, how is it\npossible to make a single step without feverish agitation?'\n\nHamlet as little attains this condition of quiet equanimity as the\npensive and pondering Montaigne. The latter, however, speaks of souls\nthat know no fear. It is true, he has to go to the ancients in order\nto meet with this frame of mind. Quoting Horace [35]--\n\n  Non vultus instantis tyranni\n  Mente quatit solida, neque Auster,\n  Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae,\n  Nec fulminantis magna Jovis manus--\n\nhe describes such a soul as being made '_mistress over her passions\nand concupiscence; having become proof against poverty and disgrace,\nand all the other injuries of fortune_. Let those who can, gain this\nadvantage. Herein lies true and sovereign freedom that allows us to\nscorn force and injustice, and to deride prisons and fetters.'\n\nTo a friend with such a soul, to a living Horace or Horatio, Hamlet\naddresses himself. Horatio also is his fellow-student and friend\nfrom the University days at Wittenberg, and he has made the views\nof the new philosophical school quite his own. He does not tremble\nbefore the fire of Purgatory and Hell. Despising death, he wishes,\nin the last scene, to empty the cup of poison from which his friend\nHamlet has drunk, in order to follow him. When the latter keeps him\nback, Horatio makes answer--\n\n  I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.\n\nHamlet, trusting more to this firmer and truly antique character than\nto his own, requests Horatio to aid him during the play-scene in\nwatching the King, so as to procure more natural evidence of his guilt.\nThis school-friend--how often may he have philosophised with him!--is\nto him\n\n  as just a man\n  As e'er my conversation coped withal.\n\nThe following passage, [36] in which Horatio's character is described\nby Hamlet, is wanting in the first quarto:--\n\n  Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,\n  And could of men distinguish, her election\n  Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been\n  As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing;\n  A man that fortune's buffets and rewards\n  Hath ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those\n  Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled\n  That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger\n  To sound what stop she please. Give me that man\n  That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him\n  In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,\n  As I do thee.\n\nHow near these words of Shakspere come to those with which Montaigne\ndescribes an intrepid man after the poem of Horace!\n\nBut, in spite of subtle reasoning, the French philosopher cannot fathom\nthe cause why he himself does not attain any mind's ease, and why he\nhas no plain and straightforward faculty (_nulle facult\u00e9 simple_)\nwithin himself. He once [37] uses the expression, 'We trouble death\nwith the care of life, and life with the care of death;' but he does\nnot succeed in firmly attaching himself to life with all the fibres of\nhis nature, and gathering strength from the mother-earth, like Antaeus.\nHe oscillates between two antagonistic views, and feels unable to decide\nfor either the one or the other.\n\nWe have explained the elements of which Hamlet's complex character is\nmade up. He is an adherent of old superstitions and dogmas; he believes\nin Purgatory, a Hell, and a Devil, and in the miraculous powers of\nconfession, holy communion, and the extreme unction. Yet, to some\ndegree, he is a Humanist, and would fain grant to Nature certain\nrights. Scarcely has he yielded to the impulses of his blood, than\ndoubts begin to rise in him, and he begins to fear the Devil, who\nmight lure him into perdition. This inner discord, creating, as it does,\na mistrust in his own self, induces him, in the most important task of\nhis life, to appeal to Horatio. To him he says that, if the King's\nocculted guilt does not come out ('unkennel itself'), he (Hamlet) will\nlook upon the apparition as a damned ghost, and (this is new) will\nthink that his 'imaginations are as foul as Vulcan's stithy.' [38]\n\nBy the interlude, Hamlet--and in this he is confirmed by Horatio--becomes\nconvinced of the King's guilt. All that he thereupon does is--to recite\na little ditty!\n\nWe have already made the acquaintance of Montaigne the soft-hearted,\nwho, as above mentioned, always was touched when seeing innocent\nanimals hunted to death, and who felt much emotion _at the tears\nof the hart asking us for mercy_. At the same time we have\ndirected the reader's attention to the fact of his having said that\nthe 'common weal requires some to betray, some to lie, and some to\nmassacre,' [39] and that this task must be left to those who are\nready to sacrifice their honour and their conscience, and that men\nwho do not feel up to such deeds must leave their commission to the\nstronger ones. This French nobleman na\u00efvely avows that he has resolved\nupon withdrawing into private life, not because he is averse to\npublic life--for the latter, he says, would 'perhaps equally suit\nhim'--but because, by doing so, he hopes to serve his Prince all the\nmore joyfully and all the more sincerely, thus following the free\nchoice of his own judgment and reason, and not submitting to any\nrestraint (_obligation particuli\u00e8re_), which he hates in every\nshape. And he adds the following curious moral doctrine:--'This is\nthe way of the world. We let the laws and precepts follow their way,\nbut we keep another course.' [40]\n\nWho could mistake Shakspere's satire against this sentimental nobleman,\nwho fights shy of action, in making Hamlet recite a little ditty at a\nmoment when he has become convinced of the King's guilt:--\n\n  Why, let the stricken deer go weep,\n  The hart ungalled play;\n  For some must watch, while some must sleep:\n  Thus runs the world away.\n\nThis gifted Frenchman, Montaigne, was a new, a strange, phenomenon\nin the eyes of Shakspere and his active and energetic countrymen.\nA man, a nobleman too, who lives for no higher aim; who allows himself\nto be driven about, rudderless, by his feelings and inclinations;\nwho even boasts of this mental disposition of his, and sends a vain\nbook about it into the world! What is it to teach? What good is it\nto do? It gives mere words, behind which there is no manly character.\nAre there yet more _beaux esprits_ to arise who, in Epicurean\nfashion, enjoy the beautiful thoughts of others, whilst they themselves\nremain incapable for action, letting the time go out of joint?\n\nLet us further study the character of Hamlet, and we shall find that\nthe satire against Montaigne becomes more and more striking--a veritable\nhit.\n\nThe Queen asks for her son. Before he fulfils her wish and comes to her,\nhe utters a lullaby of superstition (these lines are new), wherewith to\ntide over the excitement of his nature:--\n\n  'Tis now the very witching time of night,\n  When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out\n  Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,\n  And do such bitter business as the day\n  Would quake to look on.\n\nHamlet, always shrinking back from the impulses of his blood, fears\nthat the Devil might once more gain power over him:--\n\n  Soft! now to my mother!\n  O heart, lose not thy nature!\n\nThis nature of his, inclining to mildness and gentleness, he wishes\nto preserve, and he resolves upon being 'cruel, not unnatural.' In\nvain one seeks here for logic, and for the boundary between two words\nwhich to ordinary common sense appear synonymous. In Montaigne,\nhowever, we discover the clue of such a senseless argumentation.\nIn one of his Essays, [41] which contains a confusion of ideas that\nmight well make the humane Shakspere shudder, he writes:--\n\n'Our condition, both public and private, is full of imperfections;\nyet there is nothing useless in Nature, not even uselessness\nitself.... Our being is cemented with sickly qualities: ambition,\njealousy, envy, vengeance, superstition, despair dwell in us, and\nhold there so natural a possession that their counterfeit is also\nrecognised in beasts; for instance, cruelty--so unnatural a vice.\nYet he who would root out the seed of these qualities from the human\nbreast would destroy the fundamental conditions of our life.'\n\nNow, Hamlet's resolution to be 'cruel, but not unnatural,' is but a\nfresh satire against Montaigne's train of thoughts, who would fain be\na Humanist, but who does not break with the reasoning of Loyola and\nof the Church, by which he permits himself to be guided as by\nthe competent authority, and which tolerates cruelty--nay, orders its\nbeing employed for the furtherance of what it calls the 'good aim.'\n\nThe idea that cruelty is a necessary but useful evil, no doubt\ninduced Montaigne [42] to declare that to kill a man from a feeling\nof revenge is tantamount to our protecting him, for we thus 'withdraw\nhim from our attacks.' Furthermore, this Humanist argues that revenge\nis to be regretted if its object does not feel its intention; for,\neven as he who takes revenge intends to derive pleasure from\nit, so he upon whom revenge is taken must perceive that intention,\nin order to be harrowed with feelings of pain and repentance. 'To kill\nhim, is to render further attacks against him impossible; not to\nrevenge what he has done.'\n\nShakspere already gives Hamlet an opportunity in the following scene\nto prove to us that there is no boundary between cruel and unnatural\nconduct; and that one cannot be cruel and yet remain natural. In\nthe most telling words, the cause of Hamlet's want of energy is\nsubstantiated. Fate gives the criminal, the King, into the hands of\nHamlet. It is the most important moment of the drama. A stroke of\nthe sword would be enough to do the deed of revenge. The cause\nwhich makes Hamlet hesitate is, that the criminal is engaged in\nprayer, and that--\n\n    He took my father grossly, full of bread,\n    With all his crimes broad-blown, as flush as May;\n    And how his audit stands, who knows save Heaven?\n\nDoes Hamlet, then, _not_ act with refined cruelty?\n\nHere, a new thought is inserted, which we mentioned already in the\nbeginning, and which turns the balance at the decisive moment:--\n\n    But in our circumstance and course of thought\n    It is heavy with him. [43]\n\nA Shaksperean hero, with drawn sword, allows himself to be restrained\nfrom action by the thought that, because 'it is heavy' with his own\nmurdered father, who is suffering in Purgatory, he (Hamlet) ought not\nto kill the criminal now, but later on, when the latter is deeply\nwading in sin--\n\n  When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, ...\n  And that his soul may be as damn'd and black\n  As Hell, whereto it goes.\n\nHamlet has been called a philosopher whose energy has been paralysed\nby too great a range of thought. For the sovereignty of human reason\nthis is a most dangerous premiss. Do we not owe to the full and free\nuse of that reason everything great which mankind has created?\nHistory speaks of a thousand heroes (only think of Alexander, of Julius\nCaesar, of Frederick the Great!) whose doings convince us that a strong\npower of thought and action can go hand in hand, nay, that the latter\ncannot be successful without the former.\n\nBut, on the other hand, there is a way of thinking with preconceived\nsupernatural conclusions--or rather, we must call it an absence of\nthinking--when men allow themselves to be moved by the circumstances\nof a traditional course of thought. Against such intellectual\nslavery the great century of the Reformation rose. And the greatest\nHumanist, Shakspere, scourges that slavery in the catharsis of his\npowerful drama.\n\nQuestions of religion were not permitted to be treated on the stage.\nBut not merely the one deeply intelligent person for whom Shakspere\nasks the players to act, and for whom the great master certainly\nendeavoured to write--no, the public at large, too, will have\nunderstood that the 'course of thought' which induced Hamlet to forego\naction from a subtle refinement of cruelty, was not the course of\nthought prevalent on this side of the Channel, and held up, in this\nimportant scene, as that of a hero to be admired.\n\nHamlet resolved upon keeping out the soul of Nero from his 'firm bosom.'\n(What a satire there is in this adjective 'firm'!) He means to be cruel,\nbut not unnatural; he will 'speak daggers, but use none.' A man who\nlets himself be moved by extraneous circumstances is not his own\nmaster. In cruel, unnatural manner, for no object whatever, he\nmurders poor Polonius. Then he begins to speak daggers in such a\nmanner as to get into a perfect ecstasy. Nor need any priest have\nbeen ashamed of the sermon he preaches to his own mother.\n\nIn the first edition of 'Hamlet,' the scene between mother and son is\nrather like a sketch in which most things are merely indicated, not\nworked out. Only the part of the Ghost, with the exception of the line:--\n\n  Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works,\n\nwhich is wanting in the first edition, and  Hamlet's address to the\nGhost, are in both quartos the same. Even as in the first act, so this\ntime also, Hamlet, on seeing the Ghost, calls upon the saints:--\n\n  Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,\n  You heavenly guards!\n\nThis was the usual course on the occasion of such doubtful apparitions,\nof which one did not know whether they were 'airs of heaven' or 'blasts\nfrom hell.'\n\nA new intercalation is (in the first quarto there is no vestige of it),\nthat Hamlet reproaches his mother with having degraded 'sweet religion'\nto 'a rhapsody of words;' that he says 'the Devil hath conquered her at\nhoodman blind ;' that she should confess herself to Heaven, and 'assume\na virtue if she have it not;' that 'virtue itself of vice must pardon\nbeg in the fatness of these pursy times, yea, curb and woo, for leave\nto do him good.' So also is the Queen's question new:--\n\n  Ay me, what act,\n  That roars so loud, and thunders in the _index_? [44]\n\nThere is no trace, in the first quarto, of the following most\ncharacteristic thoughts:--\n\n  For, use almost can change the stamp of Nature [45]\n  And either curb (?) the Devil, or throw him out\n  With wondrous potency....\n  And when you are desirous to be blest,\n  I'll blessing beg of you.\n\nLet us figure to ourselves before what public Hamlet first saw the\nwanderer from Purgatory; before what youth he bade Ophelia go to\na nunnery; before what men he remained inactive at the critical\nmoment simply because the criminal is engaged in his prayers,\nwhilst his own murdered father died without Holy Communion, without\nhaving confessed and received the Extreme Unction. Let us remember\nbefore what audience he purposely made the thunders of the Index\nroar so loud; at what place he gets into ecstasy; and where he first\npreaches to his mother that the Devil may be mastered and thrown out.\n\nHere, certainly, we have questions of religion!\n\nShakspere's genius has known how to transport these most important\nquestions of his time, away from the shrill contact with contemporary\ndisputes, into the harmonious domain of the Muses. He, and his friends\nand patrons, did not look upon the subjects discussed in this tragedy\nwith the passionless, indifferent eyes of our century. Many men, no\ndoubt, were filled with the thought, to which Bacon soon gave a\nscientific form, that the human mind can only make true progress if\nit turns towards the inquiry into Nature, keeping far away from the\nhampering influence of transcendental dogmas. The liberal, intellectual\ntendencies of the Reformation were not yet fettered in England with\nthe new dogmatic strait waistcoat of a narrow-minded, melancholy sect.\nAnd Shakspere's views, which he has embodied in 'Hamlet,' were not in\ndivinatory advance of his age; they were easily comprehensible to the\nbest of his time.\n\nOur chief argument will be contained in the chapter in which we shall\nhear Shakspere's adversaries launch out furiously against the tendency\nof this drama. Meanwhile, we will exhaust the course of its action.\n\nHamlet has already come very near to that point of view where Reason\nat last ceases to guide his conduct, and where he becomes convinced that\nindiscretion often is of better service than deep planning.\n\nNow in Montaigne's Essay [46] already mentioned we read:--'When an\nurgent circumstance, or any violent or unexpected accident of State\nnecessity, induces a Prince to break his word and faith, or otherwise\nforces him out of his ordinary duty, he is to ascribe that compulsion\nto a lash of God's rod.'\n\nThe passage in which Hamlet consoles himself in regard to the murder\ncommitted against Polonius is new:--\n\n  I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,\n  To punish me with this, and this with me,\n  That I must be their scourge and minister.\n\nHamlet, beholding the victim of his indiscretion, excuses himself thus:--\n\n  I must be cruel, only to be kind.\n\nThe cruel deed he has done, he palliates with the remark that\nlovingkindness has forced him to it. Love of her God also forced\nCatherine of Medicis to the massacre of St. Bartholomew.\n\n  Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.\n\nYes; worse is coming! Hamlet knows that he is to be sent to England;\nthat the letters are sealed; that his two schoolfellows whom he trusts\nas he will adders, bear the mandate. What does he do to prevent further\nmisfortune?\n\nHe rejoices that--\n\n  they must sweep my way,\n  And marshall me to knavery. [47]\n\nHe enjoys, in advance, the sweet presentiment of revenge which he\nintends taking upon them. He lets things go without hindrance:--\n\n  Let it work!\n  For 'tis sport to have the engineer\n  Hoist with his own petard.\n\nHe enjoys his own crafty policy which shall blow his school-friends,\nRosencrantz and Guildenstern (who yet, so far as he knows, have not\nbeen guilty in any way towards him!) 'at the moon:'--\n\n  O, 'tis most sweet\n  When in one line two crafts directly meet.\n\nBecause Hamlet gives utterance to high-sounding thoughts, to\nsentimental dreams, and melancholy subtleties, it has been assumed\nthat his character is one nourished with the poet's own heart's blood.\nA thousand times the noble sentiment of duty has been dwelt upon,\nwhich it is alleged he is inspired with; and on account of his fine\nwords he has been more taken a fancy to than any other Shaksperian\nfigure. But that was not the poet's object. Great deeds were more\nto him than the finest words. His contemporaries understood him;\nfor Montaigne--as we shall prove--was given over to the lowest scorn\nof the age through 'Hamlet,' because the whole reasoning of Hamlet not\nonly was a fruitless, but a pernicious one.\n\nIn the fourth scene of the fourth act, the poet describes the frame of\nmind of the hero before he steps on board ship. 'Excitements of his\nreason and his blood' once more call him to revenge. This monologue,\nin which Hamlet gives expression to his feelings and thoughts, is only\nin the quarto of 1604. The folio of 1623 does not contain it. Shakspere,\nin later years, may have thought that the soul-struggle of his hero had\nbeen ended; and so he may have regarded the passage as a superfluous one,\nin which Hamlet's better self once more asks him to seize the reins of\ndestiny with his own hands.\n\nHe sees how young Fortinbras, the delicate and tender prince, 'puff'd\nwith divine ambition, mouthes the invisible event for a piece of land not\nlarge enough to hide the slain.' Hamlet philosophises that the man who\nuses not his god-like reason is but a beast; for--\n\n  --He that made us with such large discourse\n  Looking before and after, gave us not\n  That capability and god-like reason,\n  To fust in us unused.\n\nWe further hear how Hamlet reasons about the question as to how 'to\nbe rightly great.' All the thoughts he produces, seem to flow from\nthe pen of the French philosopher. In Essay III. (13) of Montaigne\nwe read the beautiful words that 'the noblest master-work of man is to\nlive for a purpose (yivre d fropos),' and:--'The greatness of the soul\ndoes not consist so much in drawing upwards, and haling forwards,\nthan in knowing how to range and to circumscribe itself. It holds\neverything to be great, which is sufficient in itself. It shows\nits superiority in more loving humble things than eminent ones.'\n\nTo the majesty of the human reason also, Montaigne, in spite of his so\noften condemning it, knows how to render justice. In Essay I. (40)\nhe remarks: 'Shall we then dare to say that this advantage of reason\nat which we rejoice so very much, and out of respect for which\nwe hold ourselves to be lords and emperors of all other creatures, has\nbeen put into us for our torment? Why strive for the knowledge of things\nif we become more cowardly thereby? if we lose, through it, the rest and\nthe tranquillity in which we should be without it? ... Shall we use the\nintellect that has been given to us for our greatest good, to effect\nour ruin; combating the designs of Nature and the general order of\nthings which implies that everyone should use his tools and means for\nhis own convenience?'\n\nNoble thoughts! But it is not enough to play an aesthetic game with\nthem. The energetic English genius wishes that they should regulate\nour life; that we should act in accordance with them, so that no tragic\ncomplication should form itself, which could only be solved by the ruin\nand death of the innocent together with the guilty. The monologue\nconcludes thus:--\n\n    O, from this time forth,\n    My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!\n\nNevertheless, Hamlet continues his voyage.\n\nThe reader will remember that Montaigne spoke of an instinctive impulse\nof the will--a daimon--by which he often, and to his final advantage,\nhad allowed himself to be guided, so much so that such strong impulses\nmight be attributed to divine inspiration. A daimon of this kind,\nunder whose influence Hamlet acts, is described in the second scene of\nthe fifth act. The passage is wanting in the first quarto. [48] Hamlet\ntells Horatio how he lay in the ship, and how in his heart there was a\nkind of fighting which would not let him sleep. This harassing condition,\nthe result of his unmanly indecision, he depicts in these words:--\n\nMethought I lay\nWorse than the mutines in the bilboes.\n\nThen all at once (how could an impulsive manner of action be better\ndescribed?), before he could 'make a prologue to his brains,' Hamlet\nlets himself be overcome by such a daimonic influence. He breaks open\nthe grand commission of others, forges a seal with a signet in his\npossession, becomes a murderer of two innocent men, and draws the evil\nconclusion therefrom:--\n\nLet us know,\nOur indiscretion sometimes serves us well,\nWhen our deep plots do pall; and that should learn us,\nThere's a divinity that shapes our ends,\nRough-hew them how we will.\n\nThis view we have already quoted from Essay III. (12). In Florio's\ntranslation (632):--'Therefore do our dessigns so often miscarry....\nThe heavens are angry, and I may say envious of the extension\nand large privilege we ascribe to human wisdome, to the prejudice of\ntheirs: and abridge them so more unto us, by so much more we endeavour\nto amplifie them.'\n\nHamlet takes the twofold murder committed against Rosencrantz and\nGuildenstern as little to heart as the 'indiscreet' deed by which\nPolonius was killed. Then the consolation was sufficient for him that\nlovingkindness had forced him to be cruel. This time, his conscience\nis not touched, because--\n\n  't is dangerous when the baser nature comes\n  Between the pass and fell incensed points\n  Of mighty opposites.\n\nWith such argumentation every tyranny may be palliated, especially by\nthose who, like Hamlet, think that--\n\n  A man's life 's no more than to say 'One.'\n\nYet another peculiarity of Montaigne's complex being is depicted by\nShakspere in the graveyard scene. He shows us every side of this\nwhimsical character who says of himself that he has no staying power\nfor any standpoint, but that he is driven about by incalculable\nemergencies.\n\nLet us read a passage in Essay II (12), and compare it with Hamlet's\nenigmatic conduct towards Laertes. Montaigne describes himself in\nthese sentences:--'Being of a soft and somewhat heavy temperament, I\nhave no great experience of those violent agitations which mostly\ncome like a surprise upon our mind without allowing it leisure to\ncollect itself.' In spite of the resistance--he further says--which\nhe endeavoured to offer, even he, however, was occasionally thus\nseized. He felt these agitations rising and growing in, and becoming\nmaster over, himself. As in drunkenness, things then appeared to him\notherwise than he usually saw them. 'I manifestly saw the advantages\nof the object which I sought after, augmenting and growing; and I felt\nthem becoming greater and swelling by the wind of my imagination.\nI felt the difficulties of my enterprise becoming easier and simpler,\nmy reasoning and my conscience drawing back. But, that fire being gone,\nall of a sudden, as with the flash of lightning, my mind resumed another\nview, another condition, another judgment.'\n\nIn this manner Hamlet conducts himself towards Laertes. A great grief\ntakes possession of him when he hears of the death of Ophelia: he leaps,\nlike Laertes, into her grave; he grapples with him; he warns him that,\nthough 'not splenetive and rash,' he (Hamlet) yet has 'something\ndangerous' in him. (He means the daimon which so fatally impelled\nhim against Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.) Hamlet and Laertes wrestle,\nbut they are parted by the attendants. Hamlet begins boasting, in\nhigh-flown language, of what great things he would be able to do.\n\nThe Queen describes Hamlet's rage in these words:--\n\n  And thus awhile the fit will work on him;\n  Anon, as patient as the female dove,\n  When that her golden couplets are disclosed,\n  His silence will sit drooping. [49]\n\nIn the meantime, the fire with which Hamlet's soul had been seized,\nis gone, like a flash of lightning. He changes to another point of\nview--probably that one according to which everything goes its way\nin compliance with a heavenly decree. The little verse he recites in\nparting:--\n\nLet Hercules himself do what he may,\nThe cat will mew and dog will have his day,\n\nquite corresponds to such a passive philosophy which has gained the\nmastery over him, and to which he soon falls a victim.\n\nWe are approaching the conclusion of the great drama. Here, again, in\norder to explain Hamlet's action, or rather his yielding to influences\naround him, we have to direct the attention of the reader to Essay\n(III. 10), in which Montaigne tells how easily he protects himself\nagainst the dangers of inward agitation by dropping the subject which\nthreatens to become troublesome to him before he is drawn on and carried\nalong by it. The doughty nobleman says that he has escaped from\nmany difficulties by not staking frivolously, like others, happiness\nand honour, life and everything, on his 'rapier and his dagger.' [50]\n\nThere may be some truth in Montaigne's charge that the cause of not a\nfew struggles he has seen, was often of truly pitiful origin, and that\nsuch struggles were only carried on from a mistaken feeling of\nself-respect. It may be true also that it is a bad habit--as he\nmaintains--to proceed still further in affairs of this kind simply\nbecause one is implicated. But how strange a confession of a nobleman\nfrom whom we at all times expect bravery: 'For want of judgement our\nhearte fails us.' [51]\n\nHamlet is engaged in such a struggle with Laertes through the graveyard\nscene. The King, who has had good cause to study Hamlet's character\nmore deeply than anyone else, reckons upon his vanity in order to\ndecide him to the fencing-match. 'Rapier and dagger' are forced upon\nweak-willed Hamlet by Osric. [52] How subtle is this satire! For\nappearance' sake, in order to outshine Laertes, the Prince accepts\nthe challenge. [53] Happiness and life, which he ought long ago to\nhave risked for the purpose of avenging his father and his honour,\nare now staked from sheer vanity. The 'want of prudence' Hamlet displays\nin accepting a challenge which he must 'carry out from a (mistaken)\nfeeling of self-respect,' has the 'intolerable' consequence that,\nshortly before he crosses swords with Laertes, he confesses to\nHoratio:--'But thou would'st not think how ill all's here about my\nheart.'\n\nAgain, Shakspere, very briefly, but not less pointedly, depicts the\nway in which Hamlet allows himself to be influenced and driven to a\ndecision. This time the poet does so by bringing in a clearly expressed\ndogmatic tenet whereby Hamlet's fate is sealed. It is 'ill all about\nhis heart.' He would prefer not going to meet Laertes. [54]\n\n  _Horatio_. If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will\n  forestal their repair hither, and say you are not fit.\n\nThe fatalist Hamlet, whom we have seen coming ever closer to the doctrine\nof Predestination, answers as follows:--\n\n  'Not a whit; we defy augury; there is special providence in\n  the fall of a sparrow. [55] If it be now, 'tis not to come;\n  if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet\n  it will come; the readiness is all. Since no man has aught\n  of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes? Let be.'\n\nThis time it is a 'Let be!'--even as it was a 'Let it go' when he was\nsent to England.\n\nNow let us read Montaigne's Essay, [56] 'To Philosophise is to Learn\nhow to Die:'--\n\n'Our religion has had no surer human foundation than the contempt of\nlife. Not only does the course of our reason lead us that way; for,\nwhy should we fear to lose a thing which, when lost, cannot be\nregretted?--but also, seeing that we are threatened by so many kinds\nof death, is it not a greater inconvenience to fear them all than to\nendure one? What does it matter when Death comes, since it is\ninevitable?... Moreover, nobody dies before his hour. The time you\nleave behind was no more yours than that which was before your birth,\nand concerns you no more.'\n\nNo further comment is needed to prove that Hamlet's and Montaigne's\nthoughts are in so close a connection that it cannot be a mere accident.\nAnd the nearer we come to the conclusion of the drama, the more\nstriking become Shakspere's satirical hits.\n\nHamlet allows his hand to be put into that of Laertes by the King. He\ndoes not think of the wrong he has done to Laertes--of the murder of\nthe latter's father, or the unhappiness he has criminally brought\nupon Laertes' sister. In most cowardly manner, hoping that Laertes\nwould desist from the combat, Hamlet endeavours to excuse his conduct\nat the grave of Ophelia, by pleading his own madness. Laertes insists\non the combat; adding that he would stand aloof 'till by some elder\nmasters of known honour' the decision were given.\n\nHamlet avenges the death of his father; he kills the criminal, the\nenemy, when his wrath is up and aflame, and every muscle of his is\nswelled with indignation--but it is _too late_. Together with\nhimself, he has dragged them all into the grave. It is blind passion,\nunbridled by reason, which does the deed: a sublime satire upon the\nwords of Montaigne in Essay II. (12), 'that the most beautiful actions\nof the soul proceed from, and have need of, this impulse of passion;\nvalour, they say, cannot become perfect without the help of wrath; and\nthat nobody pursues the wicked and the enemies with sufficient energy,\nexcept he be thoroughly in anger.'\n\nEven the kind of death by which Shakspere makes Hamlet lose his life,\nlooks like a satire against Montaigne. The latter, always a coward in\nregard to death, and continually pondering over it, says: [57]--'I\nwould rather have chosen to drink the potion of Sokrates than wound\nmyself as Cato did.' Their 'virtuous deeds' he calls [58] 'vain and\nfruitless ones, because they were done from no love of, or obedience\nto, the true Creator of all things.'\n\nHamlet dies wounded and poisoned, as if Shakspere had intended expressing\nhis abhorrence of so vacillating and weak-willed a character, who places\nthe treacherous excesses of passion above the power of that human\nreason in whose free service alone Greeks and Romans did their most\nexalted deeds of virtue. [59]\n\nThe subtlety of the best psychologists has endeavoured to fix the limits\nof Hamlet's madness, and to find the proper name for it. No agreement\nhas been arrived at. We think we have solved the problem as to the\nnature of Hamlet's madness, and to have shown why thought and action,\nin him, cannot be brought into a satisfactory harmony. Every fibre\nin Shakspere's artistic mind would have rebelled against the idea\nof making a lunatic the chief figure of his greatest drama. He wished\nto warn his contemporaries that the attempt of reconciling two opposite\ncircles of ideas--namely, on the one hand, the doctrine that we are\nto be guided by the laws of Nature; and on the other, the yielding\nourselves up to superstitious dogmas which declare human nature to be\nsinful--must inevitably produce deeds of madness.\n\nThe main traits of Montaigne's character Shakspere confers upon the\nDanish Prince, and places him before a difficult task of life. He is to\navenge his father's death. (Montaigne was attached to his father with\nall his soul, and speaks of him almost in the same words as Hamlet\ndoes of his own.) He is to preserve the State whose legitimate sovereign\nhe is. The materials for a satire are complete. And it is written in\nsuch a manner as to remain the noblest, the most sublime poetical\nproduction as long as men shall live.\n\nThe two circles of ideas which in the century of the Reformation began\na struggle that is not yet brought to an end, are, in that drama,\nrepresented on the stage. The poet shows, by making the gifted\nPrince perish, on which side every serious thinker ought to place\nhimself. That these intentions of Shakspere were understood by his more\nintelligent contemporaries and friends, we shall prove when we come to\nthe camp of his adversaries, at whose head a Roman Catholic stood,\nwho launches out in very marked language against the derision of\nMontaigne as contained in the character of Hamlet.\n\nThe noblemen who went to the theatre for the sake of the intellectual\nattractions (the fairer sex being still excluded from acting on the\nstage and therefore not forming a point of attraction) were initiated\ninto the innermost secret of what authors meant by their productions.\nDekker, in his 'Gulls Horn Book' (c. 6), reports that 'after the play\nwas over, poets adjourned to supper with knights, where they, in private,\nunfolded the secret parts of their drama to them.'\n\nAs in no other of his plays, there is in Shakspere's 'Hamlet'--the drama\nrichest in philosophy--a perfect wealth of life. Argument is pitted\nagainst argument; every turn of a phrase is a missile, sharp, and\nhitting the mark. In not a few cases, the aim and object is no longer\nrecognisable. Here and there we believe we shall be able to shed the\nlight of day upon some dark passages of the past.\n\nTo the doughty friends of Shakspere, this French Knight of the Order of\nSt. Michael, who says [60] that, if his freedom were in the least\nencroached upon, or 'if the laws under which he lives threatened\nmerely the tip of his finger, he would at once betake himself to\nany other place to find better ones;' but who yet lets everything\naround him go out of joint without offering a helping hand for repair,\nbecause 'the maintenance of States is probably something beyond our\npowers of understanding' [61]--verily, to Shakspere's doughty friends,\nsuch a specimen of humanity as Montaigne must have been quite a new and\nstrange phenomenon. They were children of an age which achieved great\nthings because its nobler natures willingly suffered death when the\nideals of their life were to be realised. In them, the fire of\nenthusiasm of the first Reformation, of the glorious time of Elizabeth,\nwas still glowing. They energetically championed the cause of Humanism.\nThe sublime conceptions of their epoch were not yet marred by that\ndark and gloomy set of men whose mischievous members were just\nbeginning to hatch their hidden plans in the most remote manors of\nEngland.\n\nThe friends of Shakspere well understood the true meaning of Hamlet's\nwords: [62]--'What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth\nand heaven?' [63] They easily seized the gist and point of the answer\ngiven to the King's question: [64]--'How fares our cousin Hamlet?'\nwhen Hamlet replies:--\n\n  Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish!\n\nSurely, some of them had read the Essay 'On the Inconsistency of our\nActions,' and had smiled at the passage:--\n\n'Our ordinary manner is, to follow the inclination of our appetite--this\nway, that way; upwards, downwards; even as the wind of the occasion\ndrives us. We never think of what _we would have_, but at the moment\nwe _would have it_; and _we change like that animal_ (the chameleon)\nof which it is said that it takes the colour of the place where it\nis laid down.' [65]\n\nShakspere's teaching is, that if the nobler-gifted man who stands at\nthe head of the commonwealth, allows himself to be driven about by every\nwind of the occasion, instead of furthering his better aims with all\nhis strength and energy of will, the wicked, on their part, will all\nthe more easily carry out their own ends. He therefore makes the King\nsay: [66]--\n\n  That we would do,\n  We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes...\n\nShakspere's friends understood the allusion contained in the first act,\nafter the apparition of the Ghost, when Hamlet calls for his 'tablets.'\nThey knew that the much-scribbling Montaigne was meant, who, as he\navows, had so bad a memory that he could not receive any commission\nwithout writing it down in his 'tablets' (_tablettes_). This defect of\nhis, Montaigne mentions over and over again, and may have been the\ncause of his many most ludicrous contradictions. [67]\n\nAfter Hamlet has written down the important fact that 'one may smile,\nand smile, and be a villain--at least, I am sure it may be so in\nDenmark,' he exclaims:--'Now to my word!' That 'word' undoubtedly\nconsists of the admonition addressed to him by the Ghost, that Hamlet,\nafter having heard his duty, also should fulfil it--that is:--\n\n  'So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.'\n\nBut he only recollects the last words of the Ghost; and Hamlet's parole,\ntherefore, is only this:--\n\n  Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me!\n\nThe value of Montaigne's book is harshly treated in the second scene of\nthe second act. To the question of Polonius as to what he is reading,\nHamlet replies:--'Words, words, words!' Indeed, Shakspere did not think\nit fair that 'the satirical rogue' should fill the paper with such\nremarks (whole Essays of Montaigne consist of similar useless prattle)\nas 'that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their\neyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a\nplentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams.' [68]\n\nThe ideas of Shakspere as to the duties of a writer were different,\nindeed, from the contents of the book which Hamlet characterises by\nhis exclamation.\n\nAs to Polonius' answer: 'Though this be madness, yet there's method in\nit,' the public had no difficulty in finding out what was meant by\nthat 'madness,' and to whom it applied.\n\nWhat may the great master have thought of an author who, as Montaigne\ndoes, jots down everything in kaleidoscopic manner, just as changeful\naccident brings it into his head? In Essay III. (2) we read:--\n\n  'I cannot get a fixed hold of my object. It moves\n  and reels as if with a natural drunkenness. I just seize\n  it at some point, such as I find it at the moment, when I\n  amuse myself with it. I do not describe its essence, but\n  its volatile passage ... from one minute to the other.'\n\nElsewhere he prides himself on his method of being able to write as long\nas there is paper and ink.\n\nHamlet says to the players: 'We'll e'en to it like French falconers: fly\nat anything we see.' Montaigne's manner of spying out and pouncing upon\nthings cannot be better depicted than by comparing it with a French\nfalconer's manner. In the first act already, Hamlet, after the\nghost-scene, answers the friends who approach, with the holla-call of\na falconer:--\n\n  Hillo, ho, ho, boy; come, bird, come!\n\nFurthermore, Hamlet says in act ii. sc. 2:--'I am but mad\nnorth-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a\nhandshaw (heronshaw!).' Now, the north-west wind would drive Montaigne\nback into his native province, Perigord, where, very likely according\nto Shakspere's view, he ought to have remained with his sham logic.\nThe south wind, on the contrary, brings the able falconer to England.\nThe latter possesses such a penetrating glance for the nature of\nthings as to be able to distinguish the bird (the heronshaw) that is\nto be pursued from the hawk that has been unhooded and cast.\n\nIn the second scene of the fifth act, between Hamlet and Horatio\n(to the weak-minded Osrick the words spoken there are incomprehensible),\nthe excellent qualities of Laertes are apparently judged. [69] This\nwhole discussion is meant against Montaigne; and in the first quarto\nthe chief points are wanting. Florio calls Montaigne's Essays 'Moral,\nPolitical, and Military Discourses.' [70] Osrick praises the qualities\nof the cavalier who has returned from France; and Hamlet replies that\n'to divide him inventorily would dizzy the arithmetic of memory.'\n\nThe further, hitherto utterly unexplained, words ('and  yet but yaw\nneither in respect of his quick sail') seem to have reference to the\nsonnet [71] by which the third book of the Essays is dedicated by\nFlorio to Lady Grey. Montaigne is praised therein under the guise\nof Talbot's name, who, 'in peace or war, at sea or land, for princes'\nservice, countries' good, sweetly sails before the wind.' In act ii.\nsc. 2, the north-north-west and the south wind were already alluded\nto, which are said to influence Hamlet's madness.\n\nThe translators and admirers of Montaigne are meant when Hamlet says\nthat 'to make true diction of him, his semblable' must be 'his mirror;\nand, who else would trace him, his umbrage--nothing more.' That is,\none must be Montaigne, or become his absolute admirer, 'his umbrage,'\n'his semblable,' in order to do justice to him. The whole scene is\nfull of allusions, easily explainable from the point of view we have\nindicated. So also, the reference to self-knowledge ('to know himself)\n--an art which Montaigne never learnt and the 'two weapons' with which\nhe fights, are full of deep meaning.\n\nIt was probably no small number of men that took delight in the French\nessayist. No doubt, the jest of the gravedigger is directed against\nthem, when he says that if the mad Hamlet does not recover his wits\nin England, it is no great matter there, because there the men are\nas mad as he.\n\nMontaigne, especially in Essay III. (2) and III. (5), brings forward\nindecencies of the most shameless kind. We quite bear in mind what\nperiod it was when he wrote. Our manners and ideas are totally\ndifferent from those of the sixteenth century. But what indignation\nmust Shakspere have felt--he who had already created his noblest female\ncharacters, Helena and Olivia; and who had sung his paean of love,\n'Romeo and Juliet'--when he read the ideas of the French nobleman\nabout love and women! Nowhere, and on no occasion, does Shakspere in\nhis dramas, in spite of phrases which to-day we qualify as obscene ones,\nlower the ideal of the womanly character--of the _ewig Weibliche_.\n\nBut let us read Montaigne's view: [72]--\n\n'I find that love is nothing else than a thirst of enjoying a desired\nsubject; nor that Venus is anything else but the pleasure of emptying\none's seminary vessels, similar to the pleasure which Nature has given\nus in discharging other parts.'\n\nNow, this significant quality also, of saying indecencies without shame,\nHamlet has in common with Montaigne. No character in Shakspere's dramas\nuses such language as Hamlet; and in this case, let it be observed, it\nis not used between men, but towards the beloved one! We shall remark\nupon his relations with Ophelia later on.\n\nThe frivolous Montaigne speaks of love as one might do of a good dish to\nbe enjoyed at every degree of age, according to taste and inclination.\nIn Essay III.(4) we learn how, in his youth, 'standing in need of a\nvehement diversion for the sake of distraction, he made himself\namorous by art and study.' Elsewhere he tells what great things he was\nable, as a young man, to achieve in this line. [73] He, therefore,\ndoes not agree with the sage who praises age because it frees us from\nvoluptuousness. [74]\n\nHe, on the contrary, says:--'I shall never take kindly to impotence,\nwhatever good it may do me.'\n\nMontaigne, the old and young lover, is lashed in act v. sc. I, in\ndisfigured verses of a song sung by the grave-digger, which dates about\nfrom the year 1557, and at Shakspere's time probably was very popular.\nIn the original, where the image of death is meant to be represented,\nan old man looks back in repentance, and with great aversion, upon\nhis youthful days when he found pleasure in love. The original verse\nstood thus:--\n\n  I lothe that I did love,\n  In youth that I thought swete,\n  As time requires for my behove,\n  Methinks they are not mete.\n\nUntil now, no sense could be made of the first verse which the\ngravedigger sings. It runs thus:--\n\n  In youth, when I did love, did love,\n  Methought it was very sweet,\n  To contract, OH! the time, for, AH! my behove,\n  O, methought, there was nothing meet.\n\nLet it be observed what stress is laid on the 'Oh!'--the proper time,\nand the 'Ah!'--the delight felt at the moment of enjoyment. The meaning\nof the old verse is changed in such a manner as to show that old\nMontaigne looks back with pleasure upon the time of his dissolute youth,\nwhilst the author of the original text shrinks back from it.\n\nThe second verse [75] is a further persiflage of the old song. Its\nreading, too, is changed. It is said there that age, with his stealing\nsteps, as clawed the lover in his clutch [76] and shipped him into the\nland as if he 'never had been such.'\n\nBy none has the relation between Ophelia and Hamlet been better felt and\ndescribed than by Goethe. He calls her 'the good child in whose soul,\nsecretly, a voice of voluptuousness resounds.' Hamlet who--driven\nrudderless by his impulse, his passion, his daimon, from one extreme to\nthe other--drags everything that surrounds him into the abyss, also\ndestroys the future of the woman that might truly make him happy. He\ndisowns and rejects her whom Nature has formed for love. At a moment when\nfanatical thoughts have mastered his reason, he bids her go to a nunnery.\n\nOnce more we must point to the Essay in which Montaigne lays down his\nideas about woman and love. French ladies, he says, study Boccaccio\nand such-like writers, in order to become skilful (_habiles_). 'But\nthere is no word, no example, no single step in that matter which\nthey do not know better than our books do. That is a knowledge bred\nin their very veins ... Had not this natural violence of their desires\nbeen somewhat bridled by the fear and a feeling of honour wherewith\nthey have been provided, we would be dishonoured (_diffamez_).' Montaigne\nsays he knows ladies who would rather lend their honour than their\n'_coach_.' [77]\n\n'At last, when Ophelia has no longer any power over her own mind,' says\nGoethe, 'her heart being on her tongue, that tongue becomes a traitor\nagainst her.' [78]\n\nIn the scene of Ophelia's madness, we hear songs, thoughts, and\nphrases probably caught up by her from Hamlet. The ideal which man\nforms of woman, is the moral altitude on which she stands. Now, let\nthe language be called to mind, which Hamlet, before the players'\nscene, uses towards his beloved!\n\nOphelia's words: 'Come, my _coach_ [79]' will be understood\nfrom the passage in Montaigne above quoted. The meaning of: 'Oh, how\nthe _wheel_ becomes it!' has reference to a thought developed\nby Montaigne in Essay III. (11), [80] which we cannot render here,\nas it is opposed to every feeling of decency.\n\nAll commentators agree in thinking that the character of Laertes is in\ndirect contrast to that of Hamlet. In the first quarto, the figure of\nLaertes is but rapidly indicated. Only that scene is worked out where\nhe cries out against the priest who will not follow his sister to\nthe grave:--\n\n  A ministering angel shall my sister be.\n  When thou liest howling.\n\nIn the second quarto only, we meet with the most characteristic speeches\nin which the strong-willed Laertes, [81] unmindful of any future world,\ncalls for revenge with every drop of his indignant blood:--\n\n  To Hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devils!\n  Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!\n  I dare damnation....\n  ... Both the worlds I give to negligence,\n  Let come what comes ...\n  ... to cut his throat i' the church.\n\nThat passage, too, is new, in which Ophelia's madness is explained as\nthe consequence of blighted love:--\n\n  Nature is fine in love, and where 't is fine,\n  It sends some precious instance of itself\n  After the thing it loves.\n\nHer own reason, which succumbs to her love, is the precious token.\n\nIn the same way, those words are not in the first quarto, in which\nLaertes gives vent to the oppressed feelings of his heart, on hearing\nof the death of his sister:--\n\n  Nature her custom holds,\n  Let shame say what it will. When these (the tears) are gone,\n  The woman will be out.\n\nAll those beautiful precepts, also, which Laertes gives to his sister,\nare wanting in the quarto of 1603. [82]\n\nHamlet is the most powerful philosophical production, in the domain of\npoetry, written at the most critical epoch of mankind--the time of the\nReformation. The greatest English genius recognised that it was\neveryone's duty to set a time out of joint to right. Shakspere showed\nto his noble friends a gifted and noble man whose life becomes a\nscourge for him and his surroundings, because he is not guided by manly\ncourage and conscience, but by superstitious notions and formulas.\n\nThis colossal drama ranges from the thorny, far-stretching fields which\nman, only trusting in himself, has to work with the sweat of his brow,\nto that wonder-land of mystery--\n\n  Where these good tidings of great joy are heard. [83]\n\nIf the principles that are fought out in this drama, in tragic conflict,\nwere to be described by catchwords, we might say: Reason stands against\nDogma; Nature against Tradition; Self-Reliance against Submission.\nThe great elementary forces are here at issue, which the Reformation\nhad unchained, and with which we all have to reckon.\n\nShakspere's loving, noble heart beautifully does justice to the defeated\nHamlet by making him be borne to his grave 'like a soldier,' with all\nthe honouring 'rites of war.' The poet who knew the human heart so\nwell, no doubt had seen many brave and gifted men who, after having\nbeen to Wittenberg's Halls of Intellectual Freedom, and become disciples\nof Humanism, once more were turned into slaves of dogmas which, under\na new guise, not less restricted the free use of reason than the tenets\nof the old faith had done:--\n\n  Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,\n  Looking before and after, gave us not\n  The capability and god-like reason\n  To fust in us unused.\n\nThe life of the most gifted remains fruitless if, through fear of what\nmay befall us in a future world, we cravenly shrink back from following\nthe dictates of our reason and our conscience. From them we must take\nthe mandate and commission for the task of our life; not from any\nmysterious messenger, nor from any ghost out of Purgatory. On the way\nto action, no 'goblin damned' must be allowed to cross our path with\nhis assumed terrors. That which we feel to be right we must do, even if\n'it be the very witching time of night, and hell breathes contagion into\nthe world.'\n\nShakspere broke with all antiquated doctrines. He was one of the\nforemost Humanists in the fullest and noblest meaning of the word. [84]\n\n 1: Essay II. 12.\n\n 2: Essay I. 26.\n\n 3: The whole contents of this chapter may be said to be condensed\n   into two lines of Shakspere:--\n\n     'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,\n     Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'\n\n 4: Essay III. 13.\n\n 5: See Bacon's Essay 'Of Simulation and Dissimulation,' where\n   he says that 'dissimulation followeth many times upon secrecy by\n   a necessity: so that he that will be secret must be a dissembler in\n   some degree,' &c.\n\n 6: The following are Hamlet's modes of asseveration:--\n   'Angels and ministers of grace,' 'All you host of Heaven,' 'God's\n   love,' 'God and mercy,' 'God's willing,' 'Help and mercy,' 'God's\n   love,' 'By St. Patrick,' 'God-a-mercy,' 'By my fay (_ma foi_),'\n   'S' blood (God's blood),' 'S' wounds,' 'God's bodykins,' 'By'r Lady,'\n   'Perdy (_Pardieu_),' 'By the rood (Cross),' 'Heavenly guards,' 'For\n   love and grace,' 'By the Lord,' 'Pray God,' &c.\n\n 7: New Shakspere Society (Stubbs, _Abuses in England_), 1879,\n   p. 131.\n\n 8: Act ii. sc. 2.\n\n 9: Act ii. sc. i.\n\n10: This description is wanting in the first quarto. The passages\n   there are essentially different; there is no allusion to Hamlet's\n   mental struggle.\n\n11: About various allusions and satirical hints in this scene later on.\n\n12: Florio, 21; Montaigne, I. ii.\n\n13: Essay III. i.\n\n14: Isaiah, ch. iii. v. 16.\n\n15: The word 'ecstasy,' which is often used in the new quarto, is\n   wanting in the first edition where only madness, lunacy, frenzy--the\n   highest degrees of madness--are spoken of.\n\n16: In the old play their names are 'Rosencroft' and 'Guilderstone.'\n   _Reynaldo_, in the first quarto, is called '_Montano_.'\n   This change of name in a _dramatis persona_ of minor importance\n   indicates, in however a trifling manner, that the interest excited\n   by the name of Montaigne (to which 'Montano' comes remarkably near\n   in English pronunciation) was now to be concentrated on another point.\n\n17: Essay I. 40.\n\n18: II. 12.\n\n19: Essay II. 27, p. 142.\n\n20: Essay III. 4, p. 384.\n\n21: Rather sharp translations of _songe-creux_, as Montaigne\n   calls himself (Florio, i. 19, p. 34). 'I am given rather to\n   dreaming and sluggishness.'\n\n22: ''S wounds' (God's wounds)--a most characteristic expression;\n   used by Shakspere only in _Hamlet_, in this scene, and again\n   in act v. sc. 2.\n\n23: As yet, Hamlet has but one ground of action--namely, the one\n   which, after the apparition of the Ghost, he set down in his tablets:\n   'that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain; at least, I am sure,\n   it may be so in Denmark.'\n\n24: Act ii. sc. 2.\n\n25: Essay I. 19.\n\n26: II. 3.\n\n27: Tacitus, _annal_. xiii. 56.\n\n28: Essay I. 19.\n\n29: Act. i. sc. 2.\n\n30: Shakspere already uses this expression in _King John_ (1595) for\n   purposes of mirthful mockery. He makes the Bastard say to the\n   Archduke of Austria (act iii. sc. i):--'Hang a calf's skin on\n   those recreant limbs!'--a circumstance which convinces us that\n   Shakspere knew the Essays of Montaigne from the original at an\n   early time. We think it a fact important enough to point out that\n   Florio translates _peau d'un veau_ by 'oxe-hide' (fo. 34). We\n   cannot think of any other explanation than that the phrase in\n   question had become so popular through _King John_ as to render\n   it advisable for Florio to steer clear of this rock. Jonson, in his\n   _Volpone_ (act. i. sc. i), makes Mosca the parasite say in\n   regard to his master: 'Covered with hide, instead of skin.'\n\n31: Florio's translation: 'If it be a _consummation_ of one's being'\n   (p. 627). Shakspere: 'a _consummation_ devoutly to be wished.' This\n   word is only once used by Shakspere in such a sense. It occurs in\n   another sense in _King Lear_ (iv. 6) and _Cymbeline_ (iv. 2), but\n   nowhere else in his works.\n\n32: Monologue of the first quarto:--\n\n      'To be, or not to be, I there's the point,\n      To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all:\n      No, to sleepe, to dreame, I, mary there it goes,\n      For in that dreame of death, when wee awake,\n      And borne before an everlasting judge,\n      From whence no passenger ever returned,\n      The undiscovered country, at whose sight\n      The happy smile, and the accursed damned.\n      But for this, the joyful hope of this,\n      Whol'd beare the scornes of flattery of the world,\n      Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore?\n      The widow being oppress'd, the orphan wronged,\n      The taste of hunger, or a tyrants raigne,\n      And thousand more calamities besides,\n      To grunte and sweate under the weary life,\n      When that he may his full quietus make,\n      With a bare bodkin, who would this indure,\n      But for a hope of something after death?\n      Which pushes the brain and doth connfound the sence,\n      Which makes us rather beare those evilles we have,\n      Than flie to others that we know not of.\n      I that, O this conscience makes cowardes of us all.\n      Lady in thy orizons, be all my sinnes remembered.\n\n33: On closely examining the copy of Montaigne's Essays in the British\n   Museum, which bears Shakspere's autograph on the title-page, we\n   found--long after our treatise had been completed--that on the\n   fly-leaf at the end of the volume is written: _Mors incrta_,\n   (Written somewhat indistinctly, meaning probably _incerta_.\n   It might also be an abbreviation of 'incertam horam' [_incr.\n   ho_.], as contained in the Latin verse on p. 626:--\n\n     Incertam frustra, mortales, funeris horam\n     Quaeritis, et qua sit mors aditura via.)\n\n   626, 627. These two numbers, apparently, refer to the corresponding\n   pages of Montaigne's work, which contain nothing but thoughts\n   about the uncertainty of the hour of death and the hereafter. On\n   p. 627 there is the speech of Sokrates, which in Florio's\n   translation, as shown above, bears such striking resemblance to\n   Hamlet's monologue. There are other Latin sentences on the same\n   fly-leaf, pronounced by Sir Frederic Madden to be written by a\n   later pen than Shakspere's. To us, at any rate, the above words\n   and numbers appear to proceed from a different hand than the other\n   sentences. Judgments thereon from persons well versed in the\n   writings of that time would be of great interest.\n\n34: P. 103.\n\n35: I. 19.\n\n36: Act iii. sc. 2.\n\n37: III. 12 (Florio, 626).\n\n38: We do not doubt that this is a sly thrust at Florio, who, in the\n   preface to his translation, calls himself 'Montaigne's Vulcan,' who\n   hatches out Minerva from that 'Jupiter's bigge brain'.\n\n39: Florio, 476.\n\n40: Florio, 592: 'Thus goe the world, and so goe men.'\n\n41: III. 1.\n\n42: II. 27.\n\n43: Clarendon: 'Circumstance of thought' means here the details\n   over which thought ranges, and from which its conclusions are\n   formed.\n\n44: '_Index_,' in our opinion, does not signify here either the\n   title, or prologue, or the indication of the contents of a book,\n   but is an allusion to the Index of the Holy See and its thunders.\n\n45: Montaigne, III. 10; Florio, 604: 'Custome is a second nature,\n   and no less powerfull.... To conclude, I am ready to finish this\n   man, not to make another. By longe custome this forme is changed\n   into substance, Fortune into Nature.'\n\n46: III. 1.\n\n47: This is wanting in the first quarto, like the whole conclusion\n   of this scene.\n\n48: This whole scene between Horatio and Hamlet consists of the\n   following four lines in the old quarto:--\n\n     _Hamlet_. Beleeuve me, it greeuves me much, Horatio,\n     That to Laertes I forgot myselfe:\n     For by myselfe methinkes I feel his greefe,\n     Though there's a difference in each other's way.\n\n   Does this not look like a draught destined to be the kernel of a\n   scene? The end of the scene where Osrick comes in, is also much\n   shorter in the older play.\n\n49: Florio, 330: 'We amend ourselves by privation of reason and\n   by her drooping.' Hamlet's conduct is only to be explained by his\n   quietly sitting down until his reason should droop.--II. 12.\n\n50: Florio, 608.\n\n51: Florio, 609.\n\n52: This whole scene is nearly new (in the first quarto it is a mere\n   sketch). There are in it several direct allusions to Montaigne's\n   book, on which we shall touch later on.\n\n53: Here the dramatist, in order to paint a trait of vanity in Hamlet's\n   character, uses a device. He makes the latter say that, since Laertes\n   went into France, he (Hamlet) has been in continual practice. Yet we\n   know (act ii. sc. 2) that he had given up his accustomed exercise.\n   In that scene the poet wishes to describe Hamlet's melancholy; in\n   the other, his vanity. He chooses the colours which are apt to\n   produce quickest impressions among the audience.\n\n54: Act v. sc. 2.\n\n55: See St. Matthew x.29.\n\n56: I. 19.\n\n57: III. 9.\n\n58: II. 12.\n\n59: The Queen describes Hamlet as 'fat, and scant of breath.' Here\n   is Montaigne's description of himself (Essai II. 27):--'J'ay,\n   au demourant, la taille forte et ramassee; le visage non pas\n   gras, mais plein, la complexion entre le jovial et le melancholique,\n   moyennement sanguine et chaude.' Florio's translation, p. 372:--'As\n   for me, I am of a strong and well compact stature, my face is not\n   fat, but full, my complexion betweene joviall and melancholy,\n   indifferently sanguine and hote--('_not splenetive and rash_').\n\n60: III. 13\n\n61: III. 9.\n\n62: Act iii. sc. 1.\n\n63: We shall now oftener touch upon satirical passages uttered by\n   the character himself against whom they are directed. The true\n   dramatist gives the public no time to think over an incident in full\n   leisure. Every means--as we have already shown before--is welcome to\n   him, which aids in rapidly bringing out the telling traits of his\n   figures. No surprise need therefore be felt that Hamlet, though\n   representing Montaigne, sneers at, and morally flagellates, himself.\n\n64: Act iii. sc. 2.\n\n65: II. 1.\n\n66: Act iv. sc. 7.\n\n67: I. 9, 25; II. 10, &c. If an attentive reader will take the\n   trouble to closely examine that part of the scene in Shakspere's\n   _Tempest_ (act ii. sc. 1) wherein the passage occurs, which he\n   borrowed from Essay I. 30--'On Cannibals'--and compare it with\n   this most 'strange Essay,' he will clearly convince himself that\n   Shakspere can only have made use of it as a satire on Montaigne's\n   defective memory, which entangles this author in the most ludicrous\n   contradictions. Gonzala declares that, if he were king of the isle\n   on which he and his companion were wrecked, he would found a\n   commonwealth as described in the above passage. He concludes this\n   description, saying he would have 'no sovereignty.'\n\n   Sebastian justly remarks: 'Yet he would be king on't;' and\n   Antonio continues by saying: 'The latter end of his commonwealth\n   forgets the beginning.'\n\n   Even such is the contradiction in Montaigne's fanciful Essay 'On\n   Cannibals,' where, towards the end, he speaks of a captain who\n   holds authority over these savages, not only in war, but also in\n   peace, 'that when he went to visit the village of his dependence,\n   they cut him paths through the thick of their woods, through which\n   he might pass at ease.' The beginning of this Essay described the\n   commonwealth of these cannibals as tolerating no politic superiority,\n   no use of service, no occupation, &c. 'What short memory!\n   much wanting tablets!'\n\n   In the above-mentioned scene of the _Tempest_ Sebastian makes\n   the remark: 'No marrying 'mong his subjects,' which evidently is\n   also meant as a hit against Montaigne's anti-matrimonial ideas,\n   which we dwelt upon in the scene between Hamlet and Ophelia.\n\n68: Jonson, long afterwards, had not forgotten this hit against\n   Montaigne. In _Epicoene_ (1609) he makes Cleremont say:--'When\n   we come to have grey heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk\n   members ... then we'll pray and fast.'\n\n69: This whole passage of act v. sc. 2 (106-138) is again\n   only to be found in the quarto of 1604, not in the folio edition of\n   1623. In later years the poet may have struck it out, as being only\n   comprehensible to a smaller circle of his friends. In the same way\n   that passage of act iv. sc. 4, which only contains thoughts\n   of Montaigne, was not received into the folio of 1623.\n\n70: This is their title in Florio's translation: _Morall, Politike,\n   Millitarie Discourses of Lo. Michaell de Montaigne, Knight of the\n   noble order of Saint Michaell, and one of the Gentlemen in ordinary\n   of the French King Henry III. his Chamber_.\n\n71: The sonnet runs thus:--\n\n      _To the Right Honourable Ladie Elizabeth Grey_. (She was a\n      daughter of Count Shrewsbury, a Talbot.)\n      Of honorable TALBOT honored farre,\n      The forecast and the fortune, by his WORD\n      _Montaigne_ here descrives; what by his Sword,\n      What by his wit; this, as the guiding starre;\n      That, as th' Aetolian blast, in peace or warre,\n      At sea, or land, as cause did use afforde,\n      _Avant le vent_, to tacke his sails aboarde,\n      So as his course no orethwart crosse might barre,\n      But he would sweetly sail _before the wind_;\n      For Princes service, Countries good, his fame.\n      Heire-Daughter of that prudent, constant kinde,\n      Joyning thereto of GREY as great a name, Of\n      both chief glories shrining in your minde,\n      Honour him that your Honor doth proclaime.'\n\n   We have already learned from the preface of the first book of the\n   _Essais_ how Florio was 'sea-tosst, weather-beaten,' 'ship-wrackt,'\n   'almost drowned,' when exerting himself to capture the\n   whale--Montaigne--and drag him through 'the rocke-rough Ocean'\n   with the assistance of his colleague Diodati, whom he compares to\n   'a guide-fish.' Hamlet calls Polonius a fish-monger. The latter\n   fools Hamlet by pretending that yonder cloud is in the shape of a\n   whale, which just before appeared to him like the back of a weasel.\n   Every word almost in this wonderful drama is a well-directed hit.\n\n72: Essay III. 5.\n\n73: _Ibid_. 13.\n\n74: _Ibid_. 2.\n\n75: The quarto of 1623 has only the third verse.\n\n76: The old song has the word 'crouch.'\n\n77: Essay III. 5, p. 460. Florio, p. 529.\n\n78: We think it is worth while to quote the following verse Montaigne\n   (III. 5) mentions when speaking of that nature of woman, which\n   he thinks suggests to her every possible act of libidinousness:--\n\n     Nec tantum niveo gavisa est ulla columbo\n     Compar, vel si quid dicitur improbius,\n     Oscula mordenti semper decerpere rostro,\n     Quantum praecipue multivola est mulier.\n\n   Florio translates (514):--\n\n     No Pigeons hen, or paire, or what worse name\n     You list, makes with hir Snow-white cock such game,\n     With biting bill to catch when she is kist,\n     As many-minded women when they list.\n\n   Is not this the character of Ophelia, as described by Shakspere--the\n   virgin inclining to voluptuousness in Goethe's view?\n\n79: Hamlet, act iv. sc. 5. In _Eastward Hoe_, Marston, Chapman,\n   and Jonson make capital out of this word, and use it as a sneer\n   against Hamlet and Ophelia. We shall return to this point later on.\n\n80: Florio, 617.\n\n81: Act iv. sc. 5.\n\n82: Laertes, act i. sc. 3:--\n\n     For nature crescent does not grow alone\n     In thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes,\n     The inward service of the mind and soul\n     Grows wide withal.\n\n    Montaigne, II. 12; Florio, 319:\n\n     The mind is with the body bred we do behold,\n     It jointly growes with it, it waxeth old.--Lucr. xliii. 450.\n\n83: Goethe's _Faust_.\n\n84: We must mention that John Sterling, in an essay on Montaigne\n   (_Westminster Review_, 1838), makes the following introductory\n   remarks:--'On the whole, the celebrated soliloquy in _Hamlet_\n   presents a more characteristic and expressive resemblance to much of\n   Montaigne's writings than any other portion of the plays of the great\n   dramatist which we at present remember, though it would doubtless be\n   easy to trace many apparent transferences from the Frenchman into the\n   Englishman's works, as both were keen and many-sided observers in the\n   same age and neighbouring countries. But Hamlet was in those days no\n   popular type of character; nor were Montaigne's views and tone\n   familiar to men till he himself had made them so. Now, the Prince\n   of Denmark is very nearly a Montaigne, lifted to a higher eminence,\n   and agitated by more striking circumstances and severer destiny,\n   and altogether a somewhat more passionate structure of man. It is\n   not, however, very wonderful that Hamlet, who was but a part of\n   Shakspere, should exhibit to us more than the whole of Montaigne,\n   and the external facts appear to contradict any notion of a French\n   ancestry for the Dane, as the play is said to have been produced\n   in 1600, and the translation of the English not for three years later.'\n\n   During our long search through the Commentaries written on\n   _Hamlet_, we also met with the following treatise: 'HAMLET;\n   _ein Tendenzdrama Sheakspeare's_ (sic!!) _gegen die skeptische\n   und kosmopolitische Weltanschauung des Michael de Montaigne, von G.\n   F. Stedefeld, Kreisgerichtsrath_. Berlin, 1871.'\n\n   The author of the latter-mentioned little book holds it to be\n   probable that Shakspere wrote his _Hamlet_ for the object\n   of freeing himself from the impressions of the famous French sceptic.\n   He regards this masterwork as 'the Drama of the Doubter;' as 'the\n   apotheosis of a practical Christianity.' Hamlet, he says, is wanting\n   in Christian piety. He has no faith, no love, no hope. His last words,\n   'The rest is silence,' show that he has no expectation of a future\n   life. He must perish because he has given up the belief in\n   a divine government of the world and in a moral order of things.\n\n   We believe we have read the Essays of Michel Montaigne with\n   great attention. We not only do not regard him as a 'sceptic' in\n   the sense meant by Mr. Stedefeld, but we hold him, as well as\n   Hamlet, to be an adherent of the so-called 'practical Christianity'\n   --at least, of what both Montaigne and Hamlet reckon to be such.\n   This 'practical Christianity,' however, is a notion somewhat\n   difficult to define.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nTHE  CONTROVERSY  BETWEEN   BEN  JONSON  AND DEKKER.\n\nMENTION OF A DISPUTE BETWEEN BEN JONSON AND SHAKSPERE IN 'THE RETURN\nFROM PARNASSUS.'\n\nCHARACTERISTIC OF BEN JONSON.\n\nBEN JONSON'S HOSTILE ATTITUDE TOWARDS SHAKSPERE.\n\nDRAMATIC SKIRMISH BETWEEN BEN JONSON AND SHAKSPERE.\n\nBEN JONSON'S 'POETASTER.'\n\nDEKKER'S 'SATIROMASTIX.'\n\nWe now proceed to an inquiry into the 'controversy between Jonson\nand Dekker,' which has been repeatedly mentioned before.\n\nShakspere, we shall find, was implicated in it in a very large degree.\nInstead of indicating, however, that controversy by the designation\nunder which it is known in literature, it would be more correct to\nput SHAKSPERE'S name in the place of that of Dekker. Many a reader\nwho perhaps does not fully trust yet our bold assertion that Hamlet\nis a counterfeit of Montaigne's individuality, will now, we hope, be\nconvinced by vouchers drawn from dramas published in 1604 and 1605,\nand which are in the closest connection with that controversy. We\nintend partly making a thorough examination of, partly consulting in\na cursory manner, the following pieces:--\n\n1. 'Poetaster' (1601), by Ben Jonson.\n2. 'Satiromastix' (1602), by Thomas Dekker.\n3. 'Malcontent' (1604), by John Marston.\n4. 'Volpone' (1605), by Ben Jonson.\n5. 'Eastward Hoe' (1605), by Ben Jonson, Chapman,\nand Marston.\n\nIn 'The Poetaster' Ben Jonson makes his chief attack upon Dekker and\nShakspere. In 'Satiromastix,' Dekker defends himself against that attack.\nIn doing so, he sides with Shakspere; and we thereby gain an insight\ninto the noble conduct of the latter. Between Jonson and Shakspere\nthere had already been dramatic skirmishes during several years before\nthe appearance of 'The Poetaster.' We shall only be able to touch\nrapidly upon their meaning, considering that we confine ourselves,\nin the main, to a statement of that which concerns 'Hamlet.'\n\nAfter Jonson, in his 'Poetaster,' had exceeded all bounds of decent\nbehaviour with most intolerable arrogance, Shakspere seems to have\nbecome weary of these malicious personal onslaughts; all the more so\nbecause they were apparently put into the mouth of innocent children.\nSo he wrote his 'Hamlet,' showing up, therein, the loose and perplexing\nideas of his chief antagonist, who belonged to the party of\nFlorio-Montaigne.\n\nHamlet, as we shall prove beyond the possibility of cavil, is the\nhitherto unexplained 'purge' in 'The Return from Parnassus,' which\n'our fellow Shakspere' administered to Ben Jonson in return for the\n'pill' destined for himself in 'The Poetaster.' After the publication\nof 'Hamlet,' Jonson wrote his 'Volpone' as a counterblast to this drama.\nNow 'Volpone,' and the Preface in which the author dedicates it to the\ntwo Universities, furnish us with the evidence that our theory must be\na fact; for Jonson therein defended both the party of Florio-Montaigne\nand himself.\n\nMoreover, we shall adduce a series of proofs from 'The Malcontent' and\nfrom 'Eastward Hoe.'\n\nA drama, written by an unknown author, and printed in 1606, offers us\na valuable material wherewith to make it clear that, at that time, a\nvery bitter feud must have raged between Jonson and Shakspere; for it\nis scarcely to be believed that it would have been brought on the\nstage had a larger public not been deeply interested in the controversy.\n'The Return from Parnassus, or the Scourge of Simony,' [1] is the title\nof the play, mentioned several times before, in which this controversy\nis referred to in clear words. Philomusus and Studioso, two poor scholars\nwho in vain had sought to pursue their calling as medical men, resolve\nupon going to the more profitable stage. They are to be prepared for\nit by two of the most famous actors from the Globe Theatre (Shakspere's\ncompany), Burbage and Kemp. Whilst these are waiting for their new\npupils, [2] they converse about the capabilities of the students for\nthe histrionic art. Kemp, in words which show that the author must have\nhad great knowledge of the stage, condemns their ways and manners,\nmocking the silly kind of acting which he had once seen in a performance\nof the students at Cambridge. Burbage thinks they might amend their\nfaults in course of time, and that, at least, advantage could be taken\nof them in so far as to make them write a part now and then; which\ncertainly they could do. To this Kemp replies:--\n\n'Few of the University pen plaies well; they smell too much of that\nwriter _Ovid_ and that writer _Metamorphosis_, and talk too much of\n_Proserpina_ and _Jupiter_. Why, here's our fellow _Shakespeare_ puts\nthem all down--I, and _Ben Jonson_ too. O that _Ben Jonson_ is a pestilent\nfellow; he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill; [3] but our\nfellow Shakespeare hath given him spurge that made him bewray his\ncredit.'\n\nBurbage answers:--'It's a shrewd fellow indeed.'\n\nFor the better understanding of this most interesting controversy, the\ncentre of which Hamlet forms, it is necessary that we should give a\ncharacteristic of Shakspere's adversary, Ben Jonson, whose individuality\nand mode of action are too little known among the general reading\npublic.\n\nBen Jonson, born in 1573, in the neighbourhood of Westminster, was\nthe posthumous child of a Scot who had occupied a modest position at\nthe Court of Henry VIII., but who, under Queen Mary, had to suffer\nlong imprisonment, probably on account of his religious opinions.\nHis estates were confiscated by the Crown. After having obtained his\nliberation, he became a priest of the Reformed Church of England.\nTwo years after his death, his widow, the mother of Ben, again\nmarried: this time her husband was a master bricklayer. The education\nof the boy from the first marriage, who at an early age showed talent\nfor learning, was not neglected. It is assumed that friends of his\nfather, seeing Ben's ability, rendered it possible for him to enter\nWestminster School, and afterwards to study at the University of\nCambridge. In his seventeenth or eighteenth year, probably from a want\nof means, he had to give up the career of learning, in order to follow\nthe simple calling of his stepfather. It may be easily understood that\nBen was little pleased with the use of the trowel; he fled to the\nNetherlands, became a soldier, and took part in a campaign. After a year,\nthe youthful adventurer, then only nineteen years old, came back to\nLondon. He talks of a heroic deed; but the truthfulness of his account\nmay well be doubted. He pretends having killed an enemy, in the face\nof both camps, and come back to the ranks, laden with his spoils.\n\nAfter his return to London, Jonson first tried to earn his livelihood\nas an actor. His figure [4] and his scorbutic face were, however, sad\nhindrances to his success. Soon he gave up the histrionic attempts and\nbegan to write additions to existing plays, at the order of a theatrical\nspeculator, of the name of Philip Henslowe. The only further detail we\nhave of Jonson's doings, down to 1598, [5] is, that he fell out with\none of his colleagues, an actor (Jonson's quarrelsome disposition as\nregards his comrades commenced very early), and that finally he killed\nhis antagonist. We then find him in prison where a Catholic priest\ninduced him to become a convert to the Roman Church which, after the\nlapse of about twelve years, he again left, returning to the Established\nProtestant Church of England. Jonson himself afterwards said once that\n'he was for any religion, as being versed in both.' [6] It is, therefore,\nnot to be assumed that he once more changed from conviction. His\nreconversion appears rather to have been a prudential act on his part,\nin order to conform to the religious views of the pedantic James I.,\nand thus to obtain access at Court, which aim he indeed afterwards\nreached; whereas he had not been able to obtain that favour under\nElizabeth. [7]\n\nIt is not known by what, or by whom, Ben Jonson was saved from the near\nprospect of the gallows. In 1598 his name is mentioned as one of the\nbetter-known writers of comedies, by Francis Meres, in his 'Palladis\nTamia.' His first successful comedy was, 'Every Man in his Humour.' Fama\nsays that the manuscript which the author had sent in to the Lord\nChamberlain's Company, was on the point of being rejected when Shakspere\nrequested to have the play given to him, read it, and caused its being\nacted on the stage. This anecdote belongs, however, to the class of\ntraditional tales of that age, whose value for fixing facts is a most\ndoubtful one. It is more certain that Ben, at the age of twenty, took\na  wife; which contributed very little to the lessening of his chronic\npoverty with which he constantly had to struggle. It does not appear that\nthe union was a very happy one; for he relates that he once left his wife\nfor five years.\n\nA diary written by an unknown barrister informs us, February 12, 1602:\n'Ben Jonson, the poet, nowe lives upon one Townesend and scornes the\nworld.' [8] In the society of gallants and lords, the young poet felt\nhimself most at home. All kinds of mendicant epistles, sonnets,\ndedications, petitions, and so forth, which he addressed to high\npersonages, and which have been preserved, convince us that Jonson\nneglected nothing that could give an opportunity to the generosity\nof liberal noblemen to prove themselves patrons of art in regard to\nhim. He boasts on the stage of being more in the enjoyment of the\nfavour of the great ones than any of his literary contemporaries. [9]\nModesty was certainly not a mitigating trait in the character of\nhot-tempered Jonson, whose wrath was easily roused.\n\nConvinced of the power of his own genius, he most eagerly wanted to see\nthe value of his work acknowledged. Not satisfied with the slow judgment\nhis contemporaries might come to, or the niggardly reward they might\nconfer; nor content with the prospects of a laurel wreath which grateful\nPosterity lays on the marble heads of departed eminent men, this\npretentious disciple of the Muse importunately claimed his full recompense\nduring his own life. For the applause of the great mass, the dramatist,\nafter all, has to contend. Jonson strove hard for it; but in vain. A more\ntowering genius was the favourite of the age. Ben, however, laid the\nflattering unction to his soul that he was above Shakspere, [10] even\nas above all other contemporary authors; and he left nothing unattempted\nto gain the favour of the great public. All his endeavours remained\nfruitless. On every occasion he freely displays the rancour he felt at\nhis ill-success; for he certainly was not master of his temper. In poems,\nepistles, and epigrams, as well as in his dramas, and in the dedications,\nprologues, and epilogues attached thereto, he shows his anger against the\n'so-called stage poets.' We shall prove that his fullest indignation is\nmainly directed against one--the very greatest: need we name him?\n\nJonson, resolved upon making the most of his Muse in a remunerative\nsense, well knew how to obtain the patronage of the highest persons\nof the country; and his ambition seems to have found satisfaction when,\nafterwards, a call was made upon him, on the part of the Court, to\ncompose 'Masques' for Twelfth-Night and similar extraordinary occasions.\nHe produced a theatrical piece in consonance with the barbaric taste\nprevailing in Whitehall, which gave plenty to do to the machinists,\nthe decorators, and the play-dresser of the stage. With such a division\nof labour in the domain of art, it is not easy, to-day, to decide to\nwhom the greater merit belongs, among those concerned, of having\nafforded entertainment to the courtiers. Dramatic or poetical value\nis wanting in those productions of Jonson.\n\nFrom his poems, as well as from the 'Conversations with Drummond,'\nwe know that among the patronesses of Jonson there were Lucie Countess\nof Bedford and Elizabeth Countess of Rutland--two ladies to whom\nFlorio dedicated a translation of Montaigne. Lady Rutland's marriage\nwas a most unhappy one. In the literary intercourse with prominent men\nof her time she appears to have sought consolation and distraction.\n\nJonson's relations with this lady must have been rather friendly ones,\nfor 'Ben one day being at table with my Lady Rutland, her husband\ncoming in, accused her that she keept table to poets, of which she\nwrott a letter to him (Jonson), which he answered. My lord intercepted\nthe letter, but never chalenged him.' [11]\n\nFrom the same source which makes this statement we take the following\ntrait in Jonson's character, which is as little calculated as his\npassionate quarrelsomeness to endear him to us. Sir Thomas Overbury\nhad become enamoured of unhappy Lady Rutland. Jonson was asked by this\nnobleman, who at the same time was a poet, to read to the adored one\na lyrical effusion of his; evidently for the purpose of fomenting her\ninclinations towards the friend who was languishing for her. Ben Jonson\nrelates that he fulfilled Overbury's wish 'with excellent grace,' at the\nsame time praising the author. Next morning he fell out with Overbury,\nwho would have him to make an unlawful proposal to Lady Rutland.\n\nBut how, we may ask, was it possible that Jonson's noble friend could at\nall think of trying to use him as a go-between in this shameful manner?\nAre we not reminded here of the position of thirsty Toby Belch towards\nthe simple Aguecheek, if not even of honest [12] Iago in his dealings\nwith the liberal Rodrigo? Neither in Olivia's uncle, nor in Othello's\nAncient is it reckoned a merit to have omitted doing pimp service to\nfriends. Their policy of taking advantage of amorous inclinations,\nalthough they did not even try to promote them by the reading of\npoetical productions, remains not the less contemptible.\n\nAs to Jonson's passion for the cup that does more than cheer, neither\nhe himself conceals it, nor is evidence to the same effect wanting\non the part of his contemporaries. Drayton says that he was in the\nhabit of 'wearing a loose coachman's coat, frequenting the Mermaid\nTavern, where he drank seas of Canary; then reeling home to bed, and,\nafter a profuse perspiration, arising to his dramatic studies.' [13]\n\nAt a certain time, Jonson accompanied a son of Sir Walter Raleigh as\ntutor during a voyage to France. The young hopeful pupil, 'being\nknavishly inclined,' and not less quick in the execution of practical\njokes than in spying out human weaknesses, had no difficulty in\nunderstanding his tutor's bent, and succeeded in making Jonson 'dead\ndrunk.' He then 'laid him on a carr, which he made to be drawen by\npioners through the streets, at every corner showing his governour\nstretched out, and telling them, that was a more lively image of\nthe Crucifix than any they had.' The mother of young Raleigh greatly\nrelished this sport. It reminded her of similar tricks her husband had\nbeen addicted to in his boyish days, 'though the father abhorred it.'\n\nWith habits of the kind described, Jonson had a hard but fruitless\nstruggle against oppressing poverty and downright misery during his\nwhole life. When age was approaching, he addressed himself to his\nhighborn patrons with petitions in well-set style. His needy condition\nwas, however, little bettered, even when Charles I., in 1630, conferred\nupon him, seven years before his death, an annual pension of 100\npounds, with a terse of Spanish wine yearly out of his Majesty's\nstore at Whitehall.\n\nA letter of Sir Thomas Hawkins describes one of the last circumstances\nof Jonson's life. At 'a solemn supper given by the poet, when good\ncompany, excellent cheer, choice wine, and jovial welcome had opened\nhis heart and loosened his tongue, he began to raise himself at the\nexpense of others.'\n\nWine, joviality, good company, and bitter satire--these were the elements\nof Ben Jonson's happiness.\n\n'O rare Ben Jonson!' Sir John Young, [14] who, walking through\nWestminster Abbey, saw the bare stone on the poet's grave, gave\none of the workmen eighteenpence to cut the words in question, and\nposterity is still in doubt whether the word 'rare' was meant for\nthe valuable qualities of the poet or for those of the boon-companion.\n\nWe will give a short abstract of Jonson's character from the notes of a\ncontemporary whose guest he had been during fully a month in 1619. One\nmight doubt the sincerity of this judgment if Sir William Drummond, his\nliberal host, had made it public for the purpose of harming Jonson.\nThere was, however, no such intention, for it remained in manuscript\nfor fully two hundred years.\n\nOnly then, a copy of this incisive characteristic came before the world\nat large. The Scottish nobleman and poet had written it down, together\nwith many utterances of Jonson, after his guest who most freely and\nseverely criticised his contemporaries had left. The perspicacity\nof Drummond, and the truthful rendering of his impressions, are fully\nconfirmed by Jonson's manner of life and the contents of his literary\nproductions. [15] Drummond concludes his notes thus:--\n\n'He' (Jonson) 'is a great lover and praiser of himself; a contemner and\nscorner of others; given rather to loose a friend than a jest; jealous\nof every word and action of those about him (especially after drink,\nwhich is one of the elements in which he liveth): a dissembler of ill\nparts which reigne in him; a bragger of some good that he wanteth;\nthinking nothing well but what either himself or some of his friends\nand countrymen have said or done. He is passionately kind and angry;\ncareless either to gain or keep; vindicative, but, if he be well\nanswered, at himself. For any religion, as being versed in both;\ninterpreteth best sayings and deeds often to the worst. Oppressed\nwith fantasie, which has ever mastered his reason: a general disease\nin many poets.'\n\nIt will easily be understood that between two natures of so opposite a\nbent as that of the quarrelsome Jonson and 'gentle Shakspere,'\nfriendship for any length of time could scarcely be possible. [16]\n\nThe creations of the dramatist obtain their real value by the poet's\nown character. He who breathes a soul into so many figures destined\nfor action must himself be gifted with a greatness of soul that\nencompasses a world. In the dramatic art, such actions only charm which\nare evolved out of clearly defined passions; and such characters only\nawake interest which bear human features strongly marked. If, however,\nwe cast a glance at the dramatic productions of Ben Jonson, we in vain\nlook among the many figures that crowd his stage for one which could\ninspire us with sympathy. Time has pronounced its verdict against his\ncreations: they are lying in the archive of mere curiosities. Even the\ninquirer feels ill at ease when going for them to their hiding-place.\nJonson's characters do not speak with the ever unmistakeable and\ntouching voice of human passions. In his comedies he produces the\nstrangest whims, caprices, and crotchets, by which he probably points\nto definite persons. The clue to these often malignant dialectics\nis very difficult to find.\n\nThe action of his plays--if incidental quarrels, full of sneering\nallusions, are left aside--is generally of such diminutive proportions\nthat one may well ask, after the perusal of some of his dramas, whether\nthey contain any action at all. No doubt the satirist, too, has his\nlegitimate place in the dramatic art; but he must know how to hit the\nweaknesses of human nature in certain striking types. Jonson, however,\nis far from being able to lay a claim to such dramaturgic merit. At\n'haphazard he took certain individualities from the idly gossiping crowd\nthat congregated in the central nave of St. Paul's Church, and put them\non the stage. Whoever had been strutting about there to-day in his\nsilken stockings, proudly displaying the nodding feathers in his hat,\nhis rich waist-coat and mantle, and boasting a little too loud before\nsome other gallant of his love adventures, ran great danger--like all\nthose whose demeanour in St. Paul's gave rise to backbiting gossip--of\nbeing pourtrayed in the 'Rose,' in the 'Curtain,' or in the theatres\nof the 'little eyases,' in such a manner that people were able, in\nthe streets, to point them out with their fingers.\n\nLike so many other novelties, this kind of comedy, too, may for a while\nhave found its admirers. Soon, however, this degradation of the Muse\nbrought up such a storm that Jonson had to take refuge in another\ndomain of the dramatic art (1601). He himself confesses:--\n\n  And since the Comic Muse\n  Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try\n  If Tragedy have a more kind aspect. [17]\n\nBut he is nothing if not satirical. The persons that are to enliven his\ntragedies are not filled with the true breath of life. They are mere\nphantoms or puppets of schoolcraft, laboriously put together by a\nlearning drawn from old folios. In his tragedies, 'Sejanus' and\n'Cataline,' he seeks to describe Romans whose whole bearing was to be\nin pedantically close harmony with the time in which the dramatic\naction occurs. Only a citizen from a certain period of ancient Rome\nwould be able to decide whether this difficult but thankless problem\nhad been solved. These cold academic treatises--for such we must,\npractically, take them to be--were not relished by the public. There\nis no vestige of human passion in the bookish heroes thus put on the\nstage. For their sorrows the audience has no feeling of fear or anguish\nand no tear of compassion.\n\nJonson, indignant at the small estimate in which his arduously composed\nworks were received, ill-humoured by their want of success, looked\nenviously upon Shakspere, who had not been academically schooled; who\naudaciously overthrew the customs of the antique drama; who made his\nown rules, or rather, who made himself a rule to others; who created\nmetrics that were peculiarly his; who chose themes hitherto considered\nnon-permissible, and unusual with Greeks and Romans; who flung the\n'three unities' to the winds; and who, nevertheless, had an unheard-of\nsuccess!\n\nThis favourite of the public, Jonson seems to have looked upon as the\nmain obstacle barring the way to his own genius. Against this towering\nrival, Jonson directed a hail of satirical arrows. Only take, for\ninstance, the prologue to 'Every Man in his Humour.' [18] There, Jonson,\nwith the most arrogant conceit, tries to make short work of various\ndramas of Shakspere's--for instance, of his historical plays, in which\nhe dared--\n\n  ... with three rusty swords,\n  And help of some few foot and half-foot words,\n  Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars,\n  And in the tyring-house bring wounds to scars.\n\nIn 'The Poetaster,' which in 1601 was acted by the children of the Queen's\nChapel, Jonson made an attack upon three poets. We hope to be able to\nprove that the one most bitterly abused, and who is bidden to swallow\nthe 'pill,' is no other than Shakspere, whilst the two remaining ones\nare John Marston and Thomas Dekker. From the 'Apologetical Dialogue'\nwhich Jonson wrote after 'The Poetaster' had already passed over the\nstage, we see that this satire had excited the greatest indignation\nand sensation in the dramatic world. It was a new manner of falling\nout with a colleague before the public. The conceited presumption\nof the author, who in the play itself assumes the part of Horace,\nseriously proclaiming himself as the poet of poets, as the worthiest\nof the worthy, is not less enormous and repulsive than the way in\nwhich he proceeds against his rivals.\n\nQuite innocently, Jonson asks in that dialogue (which was spoken on the\nstage after 'The Poetaster' had given rise to a general squabble), how\nit came about that such a hubbub was made of that play, seeing that it\nwas free from insults, only containing 'some salt' but 'neither tooth,\nnor gall,' whilst his antagonists, after all, had been the cause of\nwhatever remarks he himself had made:--\n\n  ... But sure I am, three years\n  They did provoke me with their petulant styles,\n  On every stage. And I at last, unwilling,\n  But weary, I confess, of so much trouble,\n  Thought I would try if shame could win upon 'em.\n\nIn some comedies of Shakspere, which appeared between the years 1598\nand 1601, there are characters markedly stamped with Jonsonian\npeculiarities. We may be convinced that 'gentle Shakspere' had\nreceived many a provocation [19] before he took notice of the obscure\ndramatist who was younger by ten years than himself, and publicly\ngave him a strong lesson. 'All's Well that Ends Well' contains a\nfigure, Parolles, whose peculiarities are too closely akin to those\nof Ben Jonson to be regarded as a mere fortuitous accident; especially\nwhen we find that Jonson, in 'The Poetaster,' again tries to ridicule\nthis hit by a characteristic expression. [20]\n\nParolles is a follower of Count Rousillon. His position is not further\ndefined than that he follows Bertram; he is a cross between a gentleman\nand a servant. We hear the old Lord Lafeu reproaching him in act ii.\nsc. 3:--\n\n'Why dost thou garter up thy arms o' this fashion? dost make hose of thy\nsleeves? Do other servants do so?'\n\nAgain he calls him--'a vagabond, no true traveller: you are more saucy\nwith lords and honourable personages than the heraldry of your birth and\nvirtue gives you commission.' [21]\n\nParolles boasts of being born under the sign of Mars, and up to every\nheroic deed; and it is certainly an allusion to Jonson's bravado of\nhaving in the Low Countries, in the face of both camps, killed an enemy\nand taken _opima spolia_ from him, that Shakspere lets this\ncharacter make the attempt to retake, single-handed, from the enemy, a\ndrum that had been lost in the battle. Of course, Parolles finally comes\nout a coward and a traitor. Parolles also mentions that he understands\n'Low Dutch.'\n\nIn the character of Malvolio ('Twelfth Night; or What You Will,'\n1600-1601), the quarrelsome Ben has long ago been suspected, who,\npuffed up with braggart pride, contemptuously looks down upon his\ncolleagues, and impudently exerts himself to gain access to high social\ncircles; thus assuming, like Parolles, a position that does not properly\nbelong to him. Even as Lord Lafeu takes Parolles a peg lower, so Sir\nToby (act. ii. sc. 3) reminds the haughty Malvolio that he is nothing\nmore than a steward. The religion of Malvolio also is several times\ndiscussed. Merry Maria relates that he is a 'Puritan or anything\nconstantly but a time-pleaser.' Nor is the priest wanting who is to\ndrive out the hyperbolical fiend from the captive Malvolio: an\nunmistakeable allusion to Ben Jonson's conversion in prison. The Fool\nwho represents the Priest, puts a question referring to Pythagoras to\nMalvolio who is groaning 'in darkness' and yearning for freedom. He\nreceives an evasive answer from the prisoner. In 'Volpone,' as we\nshall see, Jonson answers it very fully. [22]\n\nAltogether, there are allusions in 'The Poetaster,' and in 'Volpone,'\nto 'All's Well that Ends Well,' and to 'What You Will,' which we shall\nhave to touch upon in speaking of those plays.\n\nThe scene of 'The Poetaster' is laid at the court of Augustus Caesar.\nJonson therein describes himself under the character of Horace. The\nwhole drift of the play is, to take the many enemies of the latter\nto task for their calumnies and libels against him. Rome is the place\nof action, and the persons of the drama bear classic names. There are,\nbesides Augustus and Horace, Mecaenas (_sic_), Virgil, Propertius,\nTrebatius, Ovid, Demetrius Fannius, _Rufus Laberius Crispinus_, and\nso forth. The characters whom they are to represent are mostly\nauthors of the dramatic world around Ben Jonson. They are depicted\nwith traits so easily recognisable that--as Dekker says in his\n'Satiromastix'--of five hundred people four hundred could 'all point\nwith their fingers in one instant at one and the same man.'\n\nMore especially against two disciples of the Muse is Jonson's 'gally\nink' directed. Let us give a few instances of the lampoons and\ncalumnious squibs by which Horace pretends having been insulted on\nthe part of envious colleagues who, he maintains, look askance at\nhim because 'he keeps more worthy gallants' company' than they can get\ninto. In act iv. sc. I, Demetrius tells Tucca:--\n\n'Alas, Sir, Horace! he is a mere sponge; nothing but humours and\nobservation; he goes up and down, sucking from every society, and\nwhen he comes home, squeezes himself dry again.'\n\nTucca adds:--'He will sooner lose his best friend than his least jest.'\n\nCrispinus is found guilty of having composed a libel against Horace,\nof which the following may serve as a specimen:--\n\n  Ramp up my genius, be not retrograde;\n  But boldly nominate a spade a spade.\n  What, shall thy lubrical and glibbery muse\n  Live, as she were defunct, like punk in stews?\n  Alas! that were no modern consequence,\n  To have cothurnal buskins frighted hence.\n  No, teach thy Incubus to poetize;\n  And throw abroad thy spurious snotteries....\n  O poets all and some! for now we list\n  Of strenuous vengeance to clutch the fist.\n\nSuch was the language the contemporaries of Shakspere used. Are we to\nwonder, then, if here and there we find in his works an offensive\nexpression?\n\nThe two persons who are specially taken to task, and most harshly\ntreated, are Demetrius Fannius, 'play-dresser and plagiarius,' and\nRUFUS LABERIUS CRISPINUS, '_poetaster and plagiarius_.' In 'Satiromastix,'\nDemetrius clearly comes out as Dekker. Crispinus is the chief character\nof the play:--'the poetaster.' Against him the satire is mainly directed,\nand for his sake it seems to have been written, for the title runs\nthus: 'The Poetaster, or His Arraignment.' From all the characteristic\nqualities of Crispinus we draw the conclusion that this figure\nrepresented SHAKSPERE.\n\nFrom the above-mentioned passage in 'The Return from Parnassus' it would\nseem as if a '_pill_' had been administered in the play to several poets.\nThat is, however, not so. Then, as now, the plural form was a favourite\none with writers afraid to attack openly. Horace administers a pill\nonly to one poet--to Crispinus. And as Kemp says that Shakspere,\nthereupon, gave a '_purge_,' the conclusion is obvious that he who took\nrevenge by administering the purge, must have been the one to whom\nthe pill had been given. 'Volpone,' a play directed against the\n'purge'--that is, 'Hamlet'--will convince us that the chief controversy\nlay between Jonson and Shakspere, and not between Jonson and Dekker.\n\nThe following points will, we think, make it still clearer that we are\nwarranted in believing that the figure of Crispinus was intended by\nJonson for Shakspere.\n\nWhen, in presence of Augustus, as well as of the high jurors Maecenas,\nTibullus, and Virgil, the two poetasters have been heard; when Horace\nhas forgiven Demetrius, [23] and Crispinus, under the sharp effects of\nthe pill, has thrown up, amidst great pain, [24] the disgraceful\nwords which he had used against Horace, he is dismissed by the latter\nwith the admonition to observe, in future, a strict and wholesome diet;\nto take each morning something of Cato's principles; then taste a\npiece of Terence and suck his phrase; to shun Plautus and Ennius as\nmeats too harsh for his weak stomach, and to read the best Greeks,\n'but not without a tutor.'\n\nThis fits in with Shakspere's 'small Latin and less Greek'--a\ncircumstance of which Jonson himself, in his poem in memory of\nShakspere (1623), thought he should remind the coming generations.\n\nIt is, no doubt, a little revenge for the 'dark chamber' in which\nMalvolio [25] is imprisoned, that, after Horace has concluded his\nspeech in which the study of Latin and Greek is recommended to\nCrispinus as something very necessary for him, Virgil should add the\nfurther advice:--\n\n  And for a week or two see him locked up\n  In some dark place, removed from company;\n  He will talk idly else after his physic.\n\nThe full name given by Jonson to Crispinus is--RUFUS LABERIUS CRISPINUS.\nJohn Marston already, in 1598, designates Shakspere with the nickname\n'_Rufus_.' Everyone can convince himself of this by first reading\nShakspere's  'Venus and Adonis,' and immediately afterwards John\nMarston's 'Metamorphosis of Pigmalion's Image.' [26] We do not know\nwhether it has struck anyone as yet that this poem of Marston is a\nmost evident satire, written even in the same metre as Shakspere's\nfirst, and at that time most popular, poem. [27] In his sixth satire\nof 'The Scourge of Villanie,' Marston explains why he had composed\nhis  'Pigmalion's Image:'--\n\n  Yet deem'st that in sad seriousnesse I write\n  such nasty stuff as in Pigmalion?\n  Such maggot-tainted, lewd corruption! ...\n  Hence, thou misjudging censor: know I wrot\n  Those idle rimes to note the odious spot\n  and blemish that deformes the lineaments\n  of modern poesies habiliments.\n\nAt the end of his satire ('Pigmalion's Image'), Marston\nself-complacently tacks on a concluding piece: 'The Author in Praise\nof his Precedent Poem.' Whom else does he address there than him\nwhose poetical manner he wished to mock--namely, Shakspere's--when\nhe begins with these words:--\n\n  Now, Rufus! by old Glebron's fearfull mace,\n  Hath not my Muse deserv'd a worthy place? ...\n  Is not my pen compleate? Are not my lines\n  Right in the swaggering humour of these times?\n\nThe name of 'Rufus' has two peculiarities which may have induced\nMarston to confer it upon Shakspere. First of all, like the English\nking of that name, Shakspere's pre-name was William. Secondly, the\nbest-preserved portrait of Shakspere shows him with hair verging upon\na reddish hue.\n\nBut not only the colour of the hair, but also its thinness (according\nto all pictures and busts we have of Shakspere, he was bald-headed),\nseems to have been satirised by Jonson in his 'Poetaster.' In act ii.\nsc. 1, Chloe asks Crispinus, who, excited by her love and her beauty,\npretends becoming a poet, whether, as a poet, he would also change his\nhair? To which Crispinus replies, 'Why, a man may be a poet, and yet not\nchange his hair.'\n\nNow Dekker, in his 'Satiromastix, in which all personal insults are to be\navenged [28](for which reason the chief personages of 'The Poetaster' are\nintroduced under the same name), makes Horace give forth a long song in\npraise of 'heades thicke of hair,' whilst Crispinus gives another in\nhonour of 'balde heads;' from which we conclude that Chloe's remark on\nCrispinus' hair has reference to a bald pate, but the name of 'Rufus'\nto the colour of whatever hair there is.\n\n'Rufus Laberius Crispinus' might truly be thus rendered: 'The red-haired\nSHAK-erius, with the crisp-head, who cribs like St. Crispin.' The word\nRufus, as already explained, reminds us both of Shakspere's red\nhair and his pre-name 'William.' Laberius (from _labare_, to shake;\nhence Shak-erius, a similar nickname as Greene's SHAKE-_scene_)\nis clearly an indication of the poet's family name. The Roman custom\nof placing the name of the _gens_, or family, in the middle of a\nperson's name, leaves no doubt as to Jonson's intention. Laberius\nwas a dramatic poet, even as Shakspere. Laberius was an actor (Suet. c.i.\n39). So was Shakspere. Laberius played in his own dramas. Shakspere did\nthe same. Laberius' name corresponds etymologically, as regards meaning,\nto the root-syllable in Shakspere's name. Could Jonson, who was so well\nversed in classics, have made his satirical allusion plainer or more\npoignant? In Crispinus, both Shakspere's curly hair and the offence of\napplication, plagiarism, or literary theft, with which he is charged\nby his antagonist, are manifestly marked; St. Crispin being noted among\nthe saints for his filching habits. He made shoes for the poor from\nmaterials stolen from the rich.\n\nCrispinus approaches Horace quite as a 'Johannes Factotum,' as Greene\nhad designated Shakspere in 1592. Jonson makes him assert that he, too,\nis a scholar, a writer conversant with every kind of poetry, and a\nStoic. He also declares that he is studying architecture, and that,\nif he builds a house, [29] it must be similar to one before which\nthey are standing.\n\nIn Dekker's 'Satiromastix,' Crispinus is described as being of a most\ngentle nature. This is in harmony with the well-known quality generally\nattributed to Shakspere. In the beginning of 'Satiromastix,' Crispinus\napproaches Horace for the object of peace and reconciliation. The latter\nexcuses himself, in words similar to those of the 'Apologetical\nDialogue,' that even if he should 'dip his pen in distilde Roses,'\nor strove to drain out of his ink all gall, [30] yet his enemies would\nlook at his writings 'with sharpe and searching eyes.' Nay--\n\n  When my lines are measur'd out as straight\n  As even parallels, 'tis strange that still,\n  Still some imagine they are drawne awry.\n  The error is not mine, but in their eye;\n  That cannot take proportions.\n\n  _Crispinus_. Horrace, Horrace!\n  To stand within the shot of galling tongues,\n  Proves not your gilt, for could we write on paper,\n  Made of these turning leaves of heaven, the cloudes,\n  Or speak with Angels tongues: yet wise men know,\n  That some would shake the head, tho' saints should sing,\n  Some snakes must hisse, because they're borne with stings.\n\n  _Horace_. 'T is true.\n\n  _Crispinus_. Doe we not see fooles laugh at heaven? and mocke\n  The Makers workmanship?\n\nCrispinus goes on telling Horace that none are safe from such calumnies;\nbut that, if his 'dastard wit' will 'strike at men in corners,' if he\nwill 'in riddles folde the vices' of his best friends, then he must\nexpect also that they will 'take off all gilding from their pilles,'\nand offer him 'the bitter coare' (core). [31] With great emphasis,\nCrispinus admonishes Horace not to swear that he did not intend whipping\nthe private vices of his friends while his '_lashing jestes make all\nmen bleed_.' Crispinus concludes his mild, conciliatory speech with\nthe words:--\n\n  We come like your phisitions (physicians) to purge\n  Your sicke and daungerous minde of her disease.\n\nA peace is then concluded, which Horace (Jonson) again breaks, for which\nhe receives his punishment towards the end of 'Satiromastix.' Dekker,\nwho brings in the chief personages of 'The Poetaster' under the same\nname, makes, in this counter-piece, two parts of the figure of Rufus\nLaberius Crispinus--namely, that of William Rufus, the king, at whose\ncourt he lays the scene (Jonson's drama has the court of Augustus), and\nthat of Crispinus, the poet. The part of the king is a very unimportant\none; and it may be assumed that Dekker intended the king and the poet\nto be looked upon as the same person. The object of the play-dresser\nDemetrius (Dekker) was, no doubt, to do homage in this way to his\nchief Crispinus--that is, Shakspere. When the accused Horace is to be\njudged, the King says to Crispinus:--\n\n  Not under us, but next us take thy seate;\n  Artes nourished by Kings make Kings more great.\n\nCrispinus declares Horace guilty of having 'rebelled against the sacred\nlaws of divine Poesie,' not out of love of virtue, but--\n\n  Thy pride and scorn made her turne saterist.\n\nHorace, on account of his crimes against the sacred laws of divine\npoesy, is not 'lawrefyed,' but 'nettlefyed:' not crowned with laurels,\nbut with a wreath of nettles, and afterwards, in Sancho Panza manner,\ntossed in a blanket. He then is told:--'You shall not sit in a\nGallery when your Comedies and Enterludes have entred their Actions,\nand there make vile faces at everie lyne, to make Gentlemen have an eye\nto you, and to make Players afraide to take your part.' Furthermore,\nhe 'must forsweare to venter on the stage when your Play is ended, and\nto exchange courtezies and complements with Gallants in the Lordes\nroomes, to make all the house rise up in Armes, and to cry that's\nHorace, that's he, that's he, that's he, that pennes and purges\nHumours and diseases.' He must promise 'not to brag in Bookebinders\nshops that your Vize-royes or Tributorie Kings have done homage to\nyou, or paide Quarterage.' And--'when your Playes are misse-likt at\nCourt, you shall not Crye Mew like a Pusse-Cat, and say you are\nglad you write out of the Courtiers Elements.' [32]\n\nIn his Preface to 'Satiromastix' ('To the World '), Dekker says that\nin this play he did '_only whip his_ (Horace's) _fortunes and\ncondition of life, where the more noble_ REPREHENSION _had bin of\nhis_ MINDES DEFORMITIE.' [33]\n\nThis nobler reprehension, as we have sufficiently shown, was undertaken\nby Shakspere in his 'Hamlet.' [34] Dekker, in his Epilogue to\n'Satiromastix' (he there speaks of the 'Heretical Libertine Horace'),\nasks the public for its applause; for Horace would thereby be induced\nto write a counter-play: which, if they hissed his own 'Satiromastix,'\nwould not be the case. By applauding, they would thus, in fact, get\nmore sport; for we 'will untrusse him agen, and agen, and agen.'\n\nShakspere may have been tired of this fruitless pastime, of those\npitiful squabbles, as appears also from the reproach he makes in\n'Hamlet'to his people. By the '_more noble_ REPREHENSION' which\nhe administered to Jonson and his party, he became absorbed in the\nprofounder problems concerning mankind. The time of the lighter\ncomedies is now past for him. There follow now his grandest\nmaster-works. Henceforth the poet stands in a relation created by\nhimself to his God and to the world.\n\nWe proceed to an examination of 'Volpone,' of that play which Jonson\nsent as a counter-thrust after 'Hamlet,' and from which, as regards\nour Hamlet-Montaigne theory, we hope to convince our readers in the\nclearest manner possible.\n\n 1: Arber's _English Scholars Library_, 1879, shows that this highly\n   interesting drama was for the first time given at Cambridge in\n   1602. If so, the manuscript has unquestionably received additions\n   during the four years before its appearance in print. The fact is,\n   we find in the play certain evident allusions which could not\n   possibly have been added before the years 1603-4; for instance,\n   references to the translators of Montaigne--John Florio, and the\n   friends who aided him;--references which must have been made after\n   the _Essais_ were published.\n\n   In act i. sc. 2, Judicio speaks of the English 'Flores Poetarum,\n   against whom can-quaffing hucksters shoot their pellets.' These\n   '_Flores_ Poetarum' are _Florio_ and his fellow-workers, among whom Ben\n   Jonson is also to be reckoned; and we shall see farther on that the\n   latter abuses these offensive hucksters as 'vernaculous orators,'\n   because they make Montaigne the target of their sneers. Again,\n   in act iv. sc. 2, Furor Poeticus, Ingenioso, and Phantasma indulge\n   in expressions which can only apply to the Dedications and the\n   Sonnets of Florio's translation. Phantasma, for instance, addresses\n   an Ode of Horace to himself:--\n\n     'Maecenas, atavis edite regibus,\n     O et praesidium et dulce decus meum\n     Dii faciant votis vela secunda tuis.'\n\n   The latter line ought to run:--\n\n     Sunt, quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum,\n\n   and if we take into consideration that Juror says in the same\n   scene:--\n\n     And when thy swelling vents amain,\n     Then Pisces be thy sporting chamberlain,\n\n   it is not asserting too much that these are manifest hits at Florio,\n   who, to please his Maecenas, tries with Dr. Diodati, his 'guide-fish'\n   to capture the 'whale' in the 'rocke rough ocean.'\n\n   Florio's way of translating the Latin classic writers into\n   indifferent English rhymes is also repeatedly ridiculed. The\n   latter (Florio, p. 574.) once gives a passage from Plautus\n   (_The Captives_, Prologue, v. 22) correctly enough: 'The Gods,\n   perdye (_pardieu_), doe reckon and racket us men as their\n   tennis balls.' Furor Poeticus, in one of his fits of fine frenzy,\n   accuses Phoebus:--\n\n     The heavens' promoter that doth peep and prey\n     Into the acts of mortal tennis balls.\n\n   This he says after having, in the same highly comic speech,\n   travestied Florio's Dedication of the third book, in which that\n   gallant compares himself to 'Mercury between the radiant orbs of\n   Venus and the Moon'--that is, the two ladies to whom he dedicates\n   the book in question, and before whom he alleges he 'leads a\n   dance.' A further sneer is directed by Furor Poeticus against the\n   lazy manner with which Florio's Muse rises from her nest.\n\n   Additional allusions to dramatic publications from the years\n   1603-4 will be found on pp. 201, 202. Another proof that the play\n   (_The Return from Parnassus_) cannot be of a uniform cast,\n   is this: In act i. sc. 2 a list of the poets is given, that are to\n   be criticised. The list is kept up in proper succession as far as\n   'John Davis.' Then there are variations, and names not contained\n   in that list. These additions mostly refer to dramatic authors,\n   whilst the previous names, as far as 'John Davis,' only refer to\n   lyric poets.\n\n   We believe the intention of the first writer of _The Return\n   from Parnassus_ was only to criticise lyric poets. Moreover,\n   Monius says in the Prologue:--'What is presented here, is an old\n   musty show, that has lain this twelvemonth in the bottom of a\n   coal-house amongst brooms and old shoes.' Our opinion is that\n   _The Return from Parnassus_, after having been acted before\n   a learned public at Cambridge, came into the hands of players\n   who applied the manner in which lyric poets had been criticised\n   in it, to dramatic writers. The authors of the additions must\n   have been friends of Shakspere; for, as we shall find, the enemies\n   of the latter are also theirs.\n\n 2: Act iv. sc. 3.\n\n 3: In _The Poetaster_, of which we shall speak farther on.\n\n 4: According to certain indications in _Satiromastix_,\n   he had an 'ambling' walk, or dancing kind of step. (See _note_\n   28.)\n\n 5: Collier's _Memoirs of Alleyn_, pp. 50 and 51.\n\n 6: _Conversations with Drummond_.\n\n 7: _Satiromastix_, 1602.\n\n 8: Collier's _Drama_, i. 334.\n\n 9: _Poetaster_.\n\n10: Compare his Dedication in _Volpone_, of which we shall have\n   more to say.\n\n11: _Drummond's Conversations_.\n\n12: Of all styles, Jonson liked best to be named 'Honest;' and he\n   'hath ane hundred letters so naming him.'--_Conversations with\n   Drummond_.\n\n13: _Life of Dryden_, p. 265.\n\n14: By Aubrey called 'Jack Young.'\n\n15: As if the whole world had made it a point to conspire against\n   Jonson, Gifford laboriously exerts himself to defend him against the\n   numberless attacks of all the previous commentators, critics, and\n   biographers. The endeavour of Gifford to whitewash him seems to me\n   as fruitless a beginning as that of the little innocent represented\n   in a picture as trying to change, with sponge and soap, the African\n   colour of her nurse's face.\n\n16: Jonson's _Eulogy of Shakspere_ was composed seven years after the\n   death of the latter. Having most probably been requested by\n   Heminge and Condell not to withhold his tribute from the departed,\n   to whom both his contemporaries as well as posterity had done homage,\n   Jonson may readily have seized the occasion to do amends for the\n   wrong he had inflicted upon the great poet during his lifetime. A\n   later opinion of Jonson in regard to Shakspere (_Timber; or\n   Discoveries made upon Men and Matter_, 1630-37) is of a more moderate\n   tone, and on some points in contradiction to the words of praise\n   contained in the published poem.\n\n17: _Poetaster_, Apol. Dialogue.\n\n18: This Prologue is not contained in the first edition (1598), but\n   only in the second (1616). It may, therefore, have been written\n   in the meantime. It is supposed that it was so in 1606. (See\n   _Shakspere's Century of Praise_, 1879, pp. 118, 119.)\n\n19: Only a few of the earliest productions of Jonson have come\n   down to us. Some of them are: _Every Man in His Humour_\n   (1598); _Every Man out of His Humour_ (1599); and _Cynthia's\n   Revels_ (1600), all of them full of personal allusions. Many of\n   these are meant against Shakspere. We cannot, however, enter more\n   fully upon that, as we have to confine ourselves to the chief\n   controversy out of which _Hamlet_ arose. Neither on Jonson's\n   nor on Shakspere's part did the controversy cease after the\n   appearance of _Hamlet_. It was still carried on through several\n   dramas, which, however, we leave untouched, as not belonging\n   to our theme.\n\n20: See _note_ 25.\n\n21: In _Satiromastix_ this reproach is made to Ben Jonson:--'Horace\n   did not screw and wriggle himselfe into great Mens famyliarity,\n   impudentlie as thou doost.'\n\n22: Gifford, in his nervous anxiety to parry every reproach\n   against his much-admired, and, in his eyes, blameless Jonson whose\n   quarrelsomeness had from so many parts been properly charged, and\n   particularly desirous of shielding him against the accusation of\n   having taken up an attitude hostile to Shakspere, declares, in\n   contradiction to the opinion of all previous commentators, that\n   _Crispinus_ is to represent John Marston. Since then, Gifford's\n   assertion has been taken for granted, without deeper inquiry. The\n   authority of this fond editor of Jonson has, however, proved an\n   untrustworthy one in many things, especially in matters relating to\n   Shakspere. Thanks to the exertions of more recent inquirers, not a\n   a few things are now seen in a better perspective than Gifford was\n   able to offer. We admit the difficulty of reconstructing facts from\n   productions like _The Poetaster_, which had been dictated by the\n   overwrought feelings of the moment. But in a satire which bred so much\n   'tumult,' which 'could so deeply offend,' and 'stir so many hornets'\n   (four hundred persons out of five hundred being able to point with\n   their fingers, in one instant, at one and the same man), the\n   characters must have been very broadly drawn for general\n   recognition. By such broad traits we must still be guided in our\n   judgment to-day. All the characteristic qualities of Crispinus,\n   which we shall explain farther on, prove that Gifford's idea about\n   Crispinus being John Marston is not tenable.\n\n   This latter poet was very well versed in Greek and Latin, and had a\n   complete classic education. The admonition of Horace to perfect\n   himself in both languages, is therefore not applicable to him.\n   Furthermore, Marston, at the time The Poetaster was composed (this\n   may have been towards the end of the year 1600, or the beginning of\n   1601), had scarcely yet written anything for the stage. Only his\n   _Metamorphosis of Pigmalion's Image and Certaine Satyres_ (1598),\n   and his _Scourge of Villanie_ (1599) had been published. His first\n   tragedy came out in print in 1602; it may just have been in course\n   of becoming known on the stage. We have no means of ascertaining\n   whether it had already been acted when _The Poetaster_ appeared.\n   This much is however certain, that when this latter satire obtained\n   publicity, Marston's relations to the drama and the stage must yet\n   have been of the most insignificant kind; for Philip Henslowe, in\n   his Diary (pp. 156, 157), expressly speaks of him, even in 1599, as\n   a 'new' poet to whom he had lent, through an intermediary, the sum\n   of forty shillings 'in earneste of a Boocke,' the title of which is\n   not mentioned. Is it, then, conceivable that such a dramatist who\n   in 1601 certainly was yet very insignificant, should have been made\n   the subject, in 1601, in Jonson's _Poetaster_, of the following\n   very characteristic remark--assuming Crispinus to have been\n   intended for Marston?\n\n   Tucca says, in regard to the former, to a poor player (act\n   iii. sc. i):--'If he pen for thee once, thou shalt not need to travel\n   with thy pumps full of gravel any more, after a blind jade and a\n   hamper, and stalk upon boards and barrel-heads to an old cracked\n   trumpet.'\n\n   Does this not quite fit Shakspere's popularity and dramatic\n   success?\n\n   Jonson, it is true, tells Drummond that he had written his\n   _Poetaster_ against Marston. (According to his declaration in the\n   'Apologetical Dialogue,' there is nothing personal in the whole\n   _Poetaster!_ 'I can profess I never writt that piece more innocent\n   or empty of offence.') However, we form our judgment in this\n   matter from the clear, well-marked, and indubitably characteristic\n   traits of the play, as well as from the results of modern criticism,\n   which are fully in harmony with those traits. Everything points\n   to the figure of Ovid being a mask for Marston. Jonson perhaps\n   chose the name of Ovid for him because he, too, had written\n   _Metamorphoses_. Besides the before-mentioned _Metamorphosis\n   of Pigmalion's Image_, it is not improbable that Marston is the\n   author of the manuscript preserved in the British Museum:--_The\n   New Metamorphosis; or, A Feaste or Fancie of Poeticall Legendes.\n   The first parte divided into twelve books. Written by I. M.,\n   gent._, 1600. Ovid--Marston--in the _Poetaster_, is described as the\n   younger son of a gentleman of considerable position. He is\n   dependent on a stipend allowed to him by his father. After having\n   absolved his studies, he is to become an advocate, but secretly he\n   devotes his time to poetry. The father warns him that poverty will\n   be his lot if he does not renounce poetry. Ovid senior makes the\n   following reproach to his son (which probably has reference to\n   Marston's first tragedy, _Antonio and Mellida_):--'I hear of a\n   tragedy of yours coming forth for the common players there, called\n   _Medea_. By my household gods, if I come to the acting of it, I'll\n   add one tragic part more than is yet expected to it.... What?\n   shall I have my son a stager now? an enghle for players?... Publius,\n   I will set thee on the funeral pile first!'\n\n   All this harmonises with the few facts we know of Marston's\n   career, who is said to have been the son of a counsellor of the\n   Middle Temple, who was at Corpus Christi College at Oxford,\n   and who was made a _baccalaureus_ there on February 23, 1592. In\n   comparison with Crispinus and Demetrius, Ovid is but mildly\n   chaffed; and this, again, is in accord with the relations which soon\n   after arose, in a very friendly manner, between Jonson and Marston. It\n   is scarcely to be thought that, if Marston had been derided as\n   Crispinus, he would already have composed, as early as 1603, his\n   eulogistic poem on Jonson's _Sejanus_, and dedicated to him in\n   1604, in such hearty words, his own _Malcontent_.\n\n   From some pointed words in the libel composed by Crispinus\n   against Horace, Gifford concludes that the former must be Marston,\n   because we meet with these pointed words in some satires and\n   dramas of Marston. We, on our part, go, in these controversial\n   plays, by the main and most prominent characteristics; and these\n   show that Crispinus is Shakspere, and Ovid Marston.\n\n   The latter even once says (_Scourge of Villanie_, sat. vi.) that\n   many a one, in reading his _Pigmalion_, has compared him to Ovid.\n   In order to make out Crispinus to be guilty before Augustus, strong\n   language is required. For this purpose, Jonson may have used the\n   way and manners of Marston, and applied some of his newly coined\n   graphic words. But this proves nothing for the identity of characters.\n   The libel also contains a pointed word of Shakspere--'retrograde'--an\n   expression little employed by the latter, and which is hurled as a\n   reproach against Parolles, the figure which in all likelihood is\n   to represent Jonson; Helena (act i. sc. 2) says to him, that he was\n   born under Mars, 'when he was retrograde.'\n\n   The remark in _The Return from Parnassus_ that few of the University\n   can pen plays well, smelling too much of that writer Ovid and\n   that writer _Metamorphosis_, has, in our opinion, also reference to\n   John Marston whose first dramatic attempts--although he, like\n   Jonson, may be called a 'University man'--do not admit of any\n   comparison with those of Shakspere.\n\n23: Demetrius repentingly admits that it was from envy he had\n   ill-treated Horace, because 'he kept better company for the most\n   part than I, better men loved him than loved me; and his writings\n   thrived better than mine, and were better liked and graced.'\n\n24: The little word 'clutcht' for a long time 'sticks strangely' in\n   Crispinus' throat; it is only thrown up with the greatest difficulty.\n   In _Hamlet_ (act v. sc. i, in the second verse of the grave-digger's\n   song) we hear, 'Hath claw'd me in his _clutch_. In the original song,\n   which is here travestied, the words are, 'Hath claw'd me with his\n   crouch'.\n\n25: The following allusion in _The Poetaster_ (act iv. sc. 3) also has\n   reference to _Twelfth Night_:--'I have read in a book that to play\n   the fool wisely is high wisdom.' For Viola (act iii. sc. i) says:--\n\n     This fellow 's wise enough to play the fool;\n     And, to do that well, craves a kind of wit...\n     As full of labour as a wise man's art.\n\n   There are several indications in _The Poetaster_ pointing to\n   Shakspere's _Julius Caesar_ which had appeared in the same year\n   (1601). Not only does Horace say to Trebatius that 'great Caesar's\n   wars cannot be fought with words,' but he also corrects Shakspere,\n   who makes Antony (act iii. sc. 2) speak of Caesar's gardens on this\n   side of the Tiber, by putting into the mouth of Horace (act iii.\n   sc. i) the words:--' On the far side of all Tyber yonder.' In this\n   scene, where the two Pyrgi are examined, there are some more\n   allusions to _Julius Caesar_. Even the boy, whose instrument Brutus\n   takes away when he is asleep, is not wanting. In _The Poetaster_\n   it is a drum, instead of a lyre (the drum in _All's Well that Ends\n   Well_). And are the following words of the same scene no satire\n   upon act i. sc. 3 of _Julius Caesar_, where Casca and Cicero meet\n   amidst thunder and lightning?\n\n     2 _Pyrgi_. Where art thou, boy? where is Calipolis?\n     Fight earthquakes in the entrails of the earth,\n     And eastern whirlwinds in the hellish shades;\n     Some foul contagion of the infected heavens\n     Blast all the trees, and in their cursed tops\n     The dismal night-raven and tragic owl\n     Breed and become forerunners of my fall!\n\n   Casca dwells especially on the 'bird of night.'\n\n26: The y, in Pygmalion, seems to us not without cause to be changed\n   by Marston into an i.\n\n27: The number of metaphors used by Shakspere in 'Venus and Adonis,'\n   which Marston travesties, is strikingly large.\n\n28: A few instances may here be given of the coarseness with which\n   Dekker pays back Jonson for his personal allusions. In _The Poetaster_,\n   Crispinus is told that his 'satin-sleeve begins to fret at the rug\n   that is underneath it.' In _Satiromastix_, Tucca cries out against\n   Horace (Jonson):--'Thou never yet fel'st into the hands of sattin.'\n   And again:--'Thou borrowedst a gowne of Roscius the stager, and\n   sentest it home lousie.' Crispinus, in _The Poetaster_, is derided\n   on account of his short legs. In _Satiromastix_, Horace is laughed at\n   for his 'ambling' walk; wherefore he had so badly played mad\n   Jeronimo's part. Jonson is reproached with all his sins: that he\n   had killed a player; that he had not thought it necessary to keep\n   his word to those whom he held to be _heretics_ and _infidels_, and\n   so forth. His face, which, as above mentioned, had scorbutic\n   marks, is stated to be 'like a rotten russet apple when it is\n   bruiz'd'; or, like the cover of a warming-pan, 'full  of oylet-holes.'\n   He is called an 'uglie Pope Bonifacius;' also a 'bricklayer;' and\n   he is asked why, instead of building chimneys and laying down\n   bricks, he makes 'nothing but railes'--'filthy rotten railes'--upon\n   which alone his Muse leans. ('Railes' has a double meaning here:\n   rails for fencing in a house; and gibes.) He is told that his feet\n   stamp as if he had mortar under them--an allusion to his metrics,\n   as well as to his ambling walk.\n\n29: Shakspere was already then the proprietor of a house--New\n   Place, in Stratford. In this scene Horace also asks\n   Crispinus:--'You have much of the mother in you, sir? Your father\n   is dead?' John Shakspere, the father, died in the year when\n   _The Poetaster_ was first performed--in September, 1601.\n\n30: _Twelfth Night_, act iii. sc. 2. _Sir Toby_:--'Let there\n   be gall in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen.'\n\n31: Here Crispinus threatens Horace with the 'purge' (a word\n   that may be used as a noun or a verb), which, in _The Return from\n   Parnassus_, is mentioned as having been administered by Shakspere\n   to Jonson. It is highly probable that the reconciliation between\n   Crispinus and Horace, which is described in the beginning of\n   _Satiromastix_, had taken place between Shakspere and Ben Jonson,\n   and that, during this period of peace, the performance of _Sejanus_\n   occurred, in which Shakspere actively co-operated. After that,\n   traces of hostility only are to be discovered between the two\n   poets.\n\n   Even when Horace, in the 'Satiromastix,' has again broken the peace,\n   the gentle Crispinus says to him:--\n\n     Were thy warpt soule put in a new molde,\n     I'd weare thee as a jewell set in golde.\n\n32: The _Satiromastix_ was performed in 1602, probably in the\n   beginning of the year, as the Epilogue speaks of cold weather, and\n   Dekker scarcely would have waited a year with his answer to _The\n   Poetaster_. Queen Elizabeth died in 1603. Another decennium had to\n   pass (Shakspere had long since withdrawn to his Stratford) before\n   the taste of Whitehall had been so much lowered that Jonson could\n   become a favourite of the courtly element.\n\n33: In such type it is printed in the original.\n\n34: In _Satiromastix_, Captain Tucca once  bawls out against Horace,\n   'My name's Hamlet Revenge!' as if it had become known already then\n   in the dramatic world that Shakspere was preparing his reply to\n   _The Poetaster_. In the latter play (act iii. sc. I) which was\n   probably added after _The Poetaster_ had already been acted, and\n   Jonson had heard that Dekker was writing his _Satiromastix_),\n   Jonson makes a player from the other side of the Tiber say:--'We\n   have hired him to abuse Horace, and bring him in, in a play, with\n   all his gallants, as Tibullus, Mecaenas, Cornelius Gallus, and the\n   rest....O, it will get us a huge deal of money, Captain, and we have\n   need on't; for this winter has made us all poorer than so many starved\n   snakes. Nobody comes at us, not a gentleman, nor a--'\n\n   In the same scene Tucca utters curses, before that player, against\n   the theatres on the other side of the Tiber. The actor he addresses\n   belongs to one of them. Tucca mentions two theatres by name--'your\n   Globes, and your Triumphs.' He says to the actor:--'Commend me\n   to seven shares and a half.' Shakespere and his colleagues had\n   certain fixed shares in the 'Globe;' and the words of the actor, as\n   regards the poor winter they had, confirm that which Shakspere gives\n   to understand in _Hamlet_, that 'there was, for a while, no money\n   bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the\n   question.'\n\n\n\nVI.\n\n'VOLPONE,' by Ben Jonson.\n\n'EASTWARD HOE,' by Chapman, Ben Jonson, and Marston.\n\n'THE MALCONTENT,' by John Marston.\n\nBen Jonson's 'Volpone' was first acted in 1605; and on February 11, 1607,\nit appeared in print. [1] It is preceded by a Dedication, in which the\nauthor dedicates 'both it and himself' to 'the most noble and most\nequal sisters, the two famous Universities,' in grateful acknowledgment\n'for their love and acceptance shown to this Poem in the presentation.'\n\nIn this Dedication the most passionate language is used against all\ncontemporary poets--especially against those who now, he says, practise\n'in dramatic, as they term it: stage-poetry, nothing but ribaldry,\nprofanation,' and 'all licence of offence to God and man.' Their\npetulancy, he continues, 'hath not only rapt me to present indignation,\nbut made me studious heretofore;' for by them 'the filth of the time\nis uttered, and with such impropriety of phrase, such plenty of\nsolecisms, such dearth of sense, so bold prolepses, so racked metaphors,\nwith brothelry able to violate the ear of a pagan, and blasphemy to\nturn the blood of a Christian to water.'\n\nJonson expresses his purpose of standing off from them (the stage-poets)\n'by all his actions.' Solemnly he utters this vow:--'I shall raise the\ndespised head of poetry again, and, stripping her out of those rotten\nand base rags wherewith the times have adulterated her form, restore\nher to her primitive habit, feature, and majesty, and render her worthy\nto be embraced and kist of all the great and master-spirits of our\nworld.' This object of his--he adds--'may most appear in this my latest\nwork ('Volpone'), which you, most learned Arbitresses, have seen, judged,\nand, to my crown, approved; wherein I have laboured for their instruction\nand amendment, to reduce, not only the ancient forms, but manners of the\nscene, the easiness, the propriety, the innocence, and last, the doctrine,\nwhich is the principal end of poesie, to inform men in the best reason of\nliving.'\n\nAll contemporary dramatists are most pitilessly condemned by Ben Jonson,\nand the cause of his present indignation is clearly stated: '_A name\nso full of authority, antiquity, and all great mark, is, through their\ninsolence, become the lowest scorn of the age_;' moreover, '_my_\n(Jonson's) _fame, and the reputation of divers honest and learned,\nare the question_--that is to say, have been injured.\n\nAs in 'Volpone,' wherein Jonson, as he states, 'laboured for their\n(the contemporary poets') instruction and amendment,' we shall find\nmost numerous allusions to Shakspere and 'Hamlet,' we feel justified\nin asserting that Jonson's whole fury is, in his 'present indignation,'\nroused against this particular author and against this special drama.\nTherein, as we have shown, a name of authority, antiquity, and all\ngreat mark--Montaigne--has been tampered with, and, through this\nsatire, divers honest and learned (John Florio and his coadjutors\nin the translation--all friends of Jonson) have been injured, as well\nas the latter's own fame. In 'Hamlet,' Shakspere brought his own\nideal of friendship in the figure of Horatio on the stage, in contrast\nto the Horace of 'The Poetaster.' Jonson was not the man to be edified\nby the beautiful examples and the nobler words of his gentle adversary,\nShakspere, or to alter his sentiments in accordance with them. He rather\nwelcomed every opportunity for a quarrel. That was the element in which\nhe lived; for thus he got the materials and the spicy condiments for his\ndramas. Now in 'Hamlet' there were motives enough for lighting up a fire\nof hatred against Shakspere, and to entertain the public therewith.\n\nJonson, always ready for battle, willingly takes up the pen in their\ndefence. In doing so, the favour of a nobleman and of some high-born\nladies could be earned, at whose wish and request Montaigne had been\nEnglished. Besides, every occasion was relished for opposing Shakspere,\nwho had attacked Montaigne whose religious creed was the same as that\nof Jonson.\n\nThe British Museum possesses a copy of 'Volpone,' on which Jonson has,\nwith his own hand, written the words:--'_To his loving father and\nloving freind, Mr. John Florio, the ayde of his Muses: Ben Jonson seals\nthis testemony of freindship and love_.' Not the gift of this little\nbook, however, but its contents--namely, the attack which Jonson made,\nboth for the sake of his friend and for himself, against the great\nantagonist (Shakspere)--must be held to be the token or '_testemony\nof freindship and love_.'\n\nIn the very beginning of the Dedication, Jonson says that every author\nought to be heedful of his fame:--'Never, most equal sisters, had any\nman a wit so presently excellent as that it could raise itself, but\nthere must come both matter, occasion, commenders, and favourers to it.\nIf this be true, and that the fortune of all writers doth daily prove\nit, it behoves the careful to provide well towards these accidents;\nand, having acquired them, to preserve that part of reputation most\ntenderly, wherein the benefit of a friend is also defended.' He then\nasserts that this is an age in which poetry, and the professors of it,\nare so ill-spoken of on all sides because, in their petulancy, they\nhave yet to learn that one cannot be a good poet without first being\na good man.\n\nIn the following passage, curiously enough, a certain person is extolled\nas the model of a good man, against whom the stage dramatists, who\nthemselves, according to Jonson, are not good men ('nothing remaining\nwith them of the dignity of the poet'), have, as he thinks, grievously\nsinned:--'_He that is said to be able to inform young men to all good\ndisciplines, inflame grown men to all great virtues, keep old men in\ntheir best and supreme state, or, as they decline to childhood, recover\nthem to their first strength;_ [2] _that comes forth the interpreter and\narbiter of nature, a teacher of things divine no less than human,_ [3]\n_a master in manners; and can alone, or with a few, effect the business\nof mankind:_ [4] _this, I take him, is no subject for pride and ance\nto exercise their railing rhetoric upon._'\n\nIn this description we again see Montaigne, against whom 'railing\nrhetoric' has been used.\n\nBen Jonson proudly points to himself as having never done such mischief:\n'For my particular, I can, and from a most clear conscience, affirm\nthat I have ever trembled to think toward the least profaneness.'\nThough--he says--he cannot wholly escape 'from some the imputation of\nsharpness,' he does not feel guilty of having offered insult to anyone,\n'except to a mimic, cheater, bawd, or buffoon.' But--'I would ask of\nthese supercilious politics, _what nation, society, or general order_\nof state I have provoked? ... What public person?_ Whether I have not,\nin all these, preserved their dignity, as mine own person, safe? ...\nWhere have I been particular? where personal?'\n\nWho does not see in the following words a reproach launched against\nShakspere, that he has taken his materials from other writers? Who\ndoes not feel that the warning addressed to 'wise and noble persons'\nhas reference to the highly placed protectors of the great rival whose\nfavour Ben Jonson, in spite of his Latin and Greek, was not able to\nobtain? He says:--\n\n'Application' (that is, plagiarism) 'is now grown a trade with many;\nand there are that profess to have a key for the decyphering of\neverything: but let wise and noble persons take heed how they be too\ncredulous, or give leave to these invading interpreters to be\nover-familiar with their fames, who cunningly, and often, utter\ntheir own virulent malice under other men's simplest meanings.'\n\nJonson then approves of those 'severe and wise patriots' who, in order\nto provide against 'the hurts these licentious spirits may do in a State,'\nrather desire to see plays full of 'fools and devils,' and 'those\nantique relics of barbarism' (he means 'Masques,' which he wrote\nwith great virtuosoship) acted on the stage, than 'behold the wounds\nof private men, of princes and nations.'\n\nAnd now we come to the passage, partly already quoted, which more than\nanything else shows that the '_purge_' which 'our fellow Shakspere\ngave him'--'Hamlet'--must have greatly damaged, in the eyes of\nthe public, both the reputation of Jonson and of his friends. He\nconfesses it in these remarkable words:--\n\n'_I cannot but be serious in a cause of this nature, wherein my fame,\nand the reputation of divers honest and learned are the question; when\na name so full of authority, antiquity, and all great mark, is, through\ntheir insolence, become the lowest scorn of the age; and those men\nsubject to the petulancy of every vernaculous orator, that were wont\nto be the care of kings and happiest monarchs_.' [5]\n\nIs there a character, we may ask, not only in Shakspere's dramas, but\nin any play of that period, to which the description given by Jonson\ncould apply?--of course, Hamlet always excepted, who is but a mask\nfor Montaigne. And who else but Montaigne is designated by the\nexpressions: 'a name so full of authority, antiquity, and all great\nmark;' 'the care of kings and happiest monarchs?'\n\nThat the 'railing rhetoric' in which such a character was derided, could\nnot be contained in a satirical poem, but had reference to a drama, is\nproved, as already explained, by the fact of Jonson's wrath being\ndirected against the stage-poets. He says expressly, that henceforth,\nby all his actions, he will 'stand off from them.' To the most learned\nauthorities, the two Universities, he announces that, by his own regular\nart, he intends giving these wayward disciples of Dramatic Poesy proper\ninstruction and amendment. Had his object not been to strike the most\npopular of the stage-poets--Shakspere--he would have been bound to make\nan exception for that name of which everyone must have thought first\nwhen stage-poets were subjected to reproof. We repeat: Jonson only\nintended measuring himself against him who was the greatest of his time.\nThis was fully in accordance with his disputatious inclination. [6]\n\nThe person once '_wont to be the care of kings and happiest monarchs_'\n[7] must have been a foreigner, for we do not know of any favourite\n'_full of authority and antiquity_' who enjoyed such high privilege\nfrom English kings. However, if a dramatist had been bold enough to\nput such a favourite on the stage, he would have met with the most\nsevere punishment long before Jonson had pointed out his reprehensible\naudacity. By the '_happiest monarchs_,' Henry III. and Henry IV.\nof France are meant. The latter, at that time, yet stood in the zenith\nof his good fortune. Again, the expression: '_of every vernaculous\norator_,' points to the circumstance of the mockery being directed\nagainst a foreigner; and the same may be said of Jonson's question,\naddressed to supercilious politicians, as to what nation, society, or\ngeneral order of State he had provoked? Clearly, another nation, a\nsociety of different modes of thought than the English one, and foreign\ninstitutions, are here indicated.\n\nWe now come to some hints contained in 'Volpone,' which partly consist\nof an endeavour to expose Shakspere on account of plagiarisms committed\nagainst other writers, partly of references to irreligious tendencies,\nagainst which Jonson warns, and which he strives to ridicule.\n\nUnder the existing strict laws which forbade religious questions being\ndiscussed on the stage, the latter references had to be made in parable\nmanner, but still not too covertly, so that they might be understood by\na certain audience--namely, the members of the Universities of Oxford\nand Cambridge. [8]\n\nAlready, in the Prologue of his 'Volpone,' Jonson says of himself that--\n\n  In all his poems still hath been this measure,\n  To mix profit with your pleasure.\n\nHe also despises certain deceptive tricks of composition:--\n\n  Nor hales he in a gull old ends reciting,\n  To stop gaps in his loose writing;\n  With such a deal of monstrous and forced action,\n  As might make Bethlem a faction:\n  Nor made he his play for jests stolen from each table,\n  But makes jests to fit his fable....\n  The laws of time, place, persons he observeth,\n  From no needful rule he swerveth.\n\nIn the observance of the technical rules of the classic drama--this\nmuch Jonson could certainly prove to the world--he was superior to\nShakspere. The severe words: 'monstrous and forced action,' can only\nrefer to a drama written not long before; for, in 'Volpone,' Jonson\nwishes to give to the stage-poets of his time his own ideal of a\ndrama. 'Bethlem' (Bedlam) indicates madness round which all kinds of\nlunatics might gather as factionaries or adherents of the kind of\ndrama which Jonson wishes to stigmatise.\n\nDo we go too far in thinking that 'Hamlet' is the play which is made\nthe target of allusions in this very Prologue?\n\nHowever, we proceed at once to the Interlude which follows after the\nfirst scene of the first act of 'Volpone.' In it, Shakspere himself\nis practically put on the stage, by being asked:\n\n  how of late thou hast suffered translation,\n  And shifted thy coat in these days of reformation.\n\nThis Interlude is in no connection with the course of\nthe dramatic action.\n\nMosca, a parasite, brings in, for the entertainment of his master\n(Volpone), three merry Jack Andrews. One of them, Androgyno, must be\nheld to be SHAKSPERE.\n\nHere we have to note that Francis Meres, a scholar of great repute,\nand M.A. of both Universities, wrote in 1598 a book, entitled 'Palladis\nTamia,' which in English he calls 'Wit's Treasury.' It contains, so far\nas the sixteenth century is concerned, the most valuable statements\nas regards Shakspere: nay, the only trustworthy ones dating from that\ncentury. In that work, Meres classifies and criticises the poets of his\ntime and country by comparing each of them with some Greek or Roman\npoet, kindred to the corresponding English one in the line of production\nchosen and in quality. Ben Jonson is only mentioned once, at a very modest\nplace; his name stands last, after Chapman and Dekker.\n\nMeres confers upon Shakspere most enthusiastic but just praise:--\n\n'As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras: so the\nsweete, wittie soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and hony-tongued\nShakespeare; witness his 'Venus and Adonis;' his 'Lucrece;' his sugred\n'Sonnets' among his private friends.... As Plautus and Seneca are\naccounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy amongst the Latines: so\nShakspere among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for\nthe stage.'\n\nHe then mentions twelve of his plays, [9] and thus concludes his\neulogy:--\n\n'As Epius Stolo said that the Muses would speake with Plautus tongue,\nif they would speak Latin: so I say that the Muses would speak with\nShakespeare's fine filed phrases if they would speake English.'\n\nThe envious Jonson who pledges himself, in the Dedication to the two\nUniversities, to give back to Poesy its former majesty, may have\nconsidered it necessary, before all, to deride, before a learned\naudience, the enthusiastic praise conferred by Francis Meres upon\nShakspere, as well as Shakspere himself on account of the free\nreligious tendencies he had expressed in 'Hamlet' This is done, as\nwe said, in the Interlude prepared by Mosca for the entertainment\nof his master. Volpone boasts of the clever manner with which he\ngains riches:--\n\n  I use no trade, no venture;\n  I wound no earth with ploughshares, fat no beasts\n  To feed the shambles; have no mills for iron,\n  Oil, corn, or men, to grind them into powder:\n  ... expose no ships\n  To threatenings of the furrow-faced sea;\n  I turn no monies in the public bank,\n  Nor usure private.\n\nMosca, in order to flatter his master, continues the speech of the latter\nin the same strain:--\n\n  ... No, sir, nor devour\n  Soft prodigals. You shall have some will swallow\n  A melting heir as glibly as your Dutch\n  Will pills of butter, and ne'er purge for it; [10]\n  Tear forth the fathers of poor families\n  Out of their beds, and coffin them alive\n  In some kind clasping prison, where their bones\n  May be forthcoming, when the flesh is rotten:\n  But your sweet nature doth abhor these courses;\n  You lothe the widow's or the orphan's tears\n  Should wash your pavements, or their piteous cries\n  Ring in the roofs, and beat the air for vengeance.\n\nWe have here an allusion to Hamlet, [11] where he asks the Ghost why\nthe sepulchre has opened its 'ponderous and marble jaws' to cast him\nup again; also to the Queen and whilom widow; and, furthermore, to\nthe orphans, Ophelia and Laertes, and to the tears shed by the latter\nat his sister's death. The cry of vengeance refers to the similar\nutterances of the Ghost, of Hamlet, and of Laertes, who all seek revenge.\n\nMosca, with a view of preparing for his master a pleasure more suitable\nto his taste than that which a play like 'Hamlet,' we suppose, could\nafford him, brings in the three gamesters:--Nano, a dwarf; Castrone,\na eunuch; and Androgyne, a hermaphrodite. [12] The latter is meant to\nrepresent Shakspere; for he is introduced by Nano as a soul coming from\nApollo, which migrated through Euphorbus and Pythagoras (Meres uses\nthese two names in his eulogy of the soul of Shakspere). [13]\nAfter having recounted several other stages in the migration of Androgyne's\nsoul (we shall mention them further on), the latter has to give an\nanswer why he has 'shifted his coat in these days of reformation,'\nand why his 'dogmatical silence' has left him. He replies that an\nobstreperous 'Sir Lawyer' had induced him to do so. From this it may\nbe concluded that Bacon had some influence on Shakspere's 'Hamlet.'\nAre not, in poetical manner, the same principles advocated in 'Hamlet,'\nwhich Bacon promoted in science? [14]\n\nAfter the Hermaphrodite has admitted that he has become 'a good dull\nmule,' [15] he avows that he is now a very strange beast, an ass, an\nactor,a hermaphrodite, and a fool; and that he more especially relishes\nthis latter condition of his, for in all other forms, as Jonson makes\nhim confess, he has 'proved most distressed.' [16]\n\nLet us now quote from this Interlude some highly-spiced satirical passages.\n\nNano, the dwarf, coming in with Androgyno and Castrone, asks for room for\nthe new gamesters or players, and says to the public:--\n\n  They do bring you neither play, nor university show;\n  And therefore do intreat you that whatsoever they rehearse,\n  May not fare a whit the worse, for the false pace of the verse. [17]\n  If you wonder at this, you will wonder more ere we pass,\n  For know, here [18] is inclosed the soul of Pythagoras, [19]\n  That juggler divine, as hereafter shall follow;\n  Which soul, fast and loose, sir, came first from Apollo.\n\nIt is explained how that soul afterwards transmigrated into 'the\ngoldy-locked Euphorbus who was killed, in good fashion, at the siege\nof old Troy, by the cuckold of Sparta;' how it then passed into\nHermotimus, 'where no sooner it was missing, but with one Pyrrhus\nof Delos [20] it learned to go a-fishing;' [21] how thence it did\nenter the Sophist of Greece, Pythagoras. After having been changed\ninto whom,\n\n  she became a philosopher,\n  Crates the cynick, as itself doth relate it: [22]\n  Since kings, knights and beggars, knaves, lords, and fools get it,\n  Besides ox and ass, camel, mule, goat, and brock, [23]\n  In all which it has spoke, as in the cobbler's cock. [24]\n\n\nNano's present intention, however, is not to refer to such things:--\n\n  But I come not here to discourse of that matter,\n  Or his one, two, or three, or his great oath, BY QUATER, [25]\n  His musics,[26] his trigon, his golden thigh, [27]\n  Or his telling how elements [28] shift: but I\n  Would ask, how of late thou hast suffered translation\n  And shifted thy coat in these days of Reformation.\n\n  _Androgyno_. Like one of the reformed, a fool, as you see,\n  COUNTING ALL OLD DOCTRINE HERESIE.\n\n  _Nano_. But not on thine own forbid meats hast thou ventured.\n\n  _Androgyno_. On fish, when first a Carthusian I entered.[29]\n\n  _Nano_. Why, then thy dogmatical silence hath left thee?\n\n  _Androgyno_. Of that an _obstreperous_ lawyer bereft me.\n\n  _Nano_.  O wonderful change, when sir lawyer forsook thee!\n  For Pythagore's sake, what body then took thee?\n\n  _Androgyno_.  A good dull mule.\n\n  _Nano_.  And how! by that means Thou wert brought to allow of\n  the eating of beans?\n\n  _Androgyno_.  Yes.\n\n  _Nano_.  But from the mule into whom didst thou pass?\n\n  _Androgyno_.  Into a very strange beast, by some writers called\n  an ass;\n  By others, a precise, pure, _illuminate brother_,\n  Of those devour flesh, and sometimes one another;\n  And will drop you forth a libel, or a sanctified lie,\n  Betwixt every spoonful of a Nativity [30] pie.\n\nNano then admonishes Androgyno to quit that profane nation. Androgyno\nanswers that he gladly remains in the shape of a fool and a hermaphrodite.\nTo the question of Nano, as to whether he likes remaining a hermaphrodite\nin order to 'vary the delight of each sex,' Androgyno replies:--\n\n  Alas, those pleasures be stale and forsaken;\n  No 't is your fool wherewith I am so taken,\n  The only one creature that I can called blessed;\n  For all other forms I have proved most distressed.\n\n  _Nano_.  Spoke true, as thou wert in Pythagoras still.\n  This learned opinion we celebrate will,...\n\nWith a song, praising fools, the Interlude closes.\n\nIn act ii. sc. 2, after Mosca and Volpone have erected a stage upon\nthe stage, Volpone enters, disguised as a mountebank, and abuses those\n'ground ciarlatani' (charlatans, impostors) 'who come in lamely, with\ntheir mouldy tales out of Boccaccio.' Then there is a most clear\nallusion to Hamlet (act iv. sc. 6), where he informs his friend Horatio,\nby letter, of his voyage to England when he was made prisoner by\npirates, who dealt with him 'like thieves of mercy.' A further remark\nof Volpone on 'base pilferies,' and 'wholesome penance done for it,'\nmay be taken as a hit against Hamlet's 'fingering' the packet to 'unseal\ntheir grand commission;' for which, in Jonson's view, he would be forced\nby his father confessor, in a well-regulated Roman Catholic State, to\ndo penance.\n\nThis is what Volpone says:--\n\n'No, no, worthy gentlemen; to tell you true, I cannot endure to see\nthe rabble of these ground ciarlatani, that ... come in lamely, with\ntheir mouldy tales out of Boccaccio, like stale Tabarine, the fabulist;\nsome of them discoursing their travels; and of their tedious captivity\n[31] in the Turks' galleys, when, indeed, were the truth known, they\nwere the Christians' gallies, where very temperately they eat bread\nand drunk water, as a wholesome penance, [32] enjoined them by their\nconfessors for base pilferies.'\n\nShakspere, as we have already explained, got a 'pill' in 'The Poetaster,'\nwhereupon 'our fellow Shakespeare,' as is maintained in the 'Return from\nParnassus,' 'has given him' (Jonson) 'a purge that made him bewray his\ncredit' Now Ben, clearly enough, calls this answer of the great\nadversary--a 'finely wrapt-up antimony,' whereby minds 'stopped with\nearthy oppilations,' are purged into another world.\n\nVolpone says:--'These turdy-facy, nasty-paty, lousy-fartical rogues,\nwith one poor groat's worth of unprepared antimony, finely wrapt up in\nseveral scartoccios (covers), [33]  are able, very well, to kill their\ntwenty a week, and play; yet these meagre, starved spirits, who have\nstopt the organs of their minds with earthy oppilations, want not their\nfavourers among your shrivelled sallad-eating artizans, [34] who are\noverjoyed that they may have their half-pe'rth of physic; though it\npurge them into another world, it makes no matter.'\n\nJonson then continues his satire against 'Hamlet' by making Volpone,\ndisguised as a mountebank, sell medicine which is to render that 'purge'\n('Hamlet') perfectly innocuous. He calls his medicine 'Oglio del Scoto:'\n[35] good for strengthening the nerves; a sovereign remedy against all\nkinds of illnesses; and, 'it stops a dysenteria, immediately.'\n\nNano praises its miraculous effects in a song:--\n\n  Had old Hippocrates, or Galen,\n  That to their books put med'cines all in,\n  But known this secret, they had never\n  (Of which they will be guilty ever)\n  Been murderers of so much paper,\n  Or wasted many a hurtless taper;\n  No Indian drug had e'er been famed,\n  Tobacco, sassafras not named;\n  Ne yet of guacum one small stick, sir,\n  Nor Raymund Lully's great elixir.\n  Ne had been known the _Danish Gonswart_,\n  Or Paracelsus, with his long sword.\n\nIs not HAMLET here as good as indicated by name?\n\nThe Danish Prince appears on the stage in his 'inky cloak.' No doubt,\nJonson picked up the word 'Gonswart' (_gansch-zwart_, in Flemish)\namong his Flemish, Dutch, and other Nether-German comrades of war in\nthe Low  Countries. Surely, the Danish Prince 'All-Black' is none else\nbut Hamlet clad in black.\n\nIn the same scene, the connection between Hamlet and Ophelia also is\nsatirically pulled to pieces. In 'Eastward Hoe' (1605), Jonson and\nhis party do the same in the most indecent and most despicable manner.\n\nNano, praising the sublime virtues of the 'Oglio del Scoto,' sings:--\n\n  Would you live free from all diseases?\n  Do the act your mistress pleases,\n  Yet fright all aches from your bones?\n  Here's a medicine for the nones. [36]\n\nThe scene of the action in 'Volpone' is laid in Venice. During the\nwhole scene above-mentioned, Sir Politick Would-Be and a youthful\ngentleman-traveller are present Others have already pointed out that,\nby the former, Shakspere is meant. [37] The traveller, Peregrine, is\na youth whom the jealous Lady Politick once declares to be 'a female\ndevil in a male outside,'--again an allusion to Shakspere's 'two\nloves' which he himself describes in Sonnet 144.\n\nThe words, also, with which Hamlet (act iii. sc. 3) praises his friend\nHoratio (the Shaksperian ideal of a Horace) are ridiculed by Jonson in\nthis scene. Sir Politick Would-Be says to Peregrine:--\n\n  Well, if I could but find one man, one man,\n  To mine own heart, whom I durst trust, I would--\n\nWhen the stage is raised on the theatre for Volpone, who is disguised\nas a quacksalver, Sir Politick wishes to enlighten Peregrine as to the\nfellows that 'mount the bank.' [38] We need not explain that this is\ndirected against the 'so-called stage-poets' and players. It will\neasily be perceived that the meaning of the subsequent conversation\nis the same as in the Preface of 'Volpone,' where Jonson says that\n'wis and noble persons 'ought to' take heed how they be too credulous,\nor give leave to these invading interpreters to be over-familiar with\ntheir fames.'\n\nSir Politick (describing the fellows, one of which is to mount the\nbank) says:--\n\n  They are the only knowing men of Europe!\n  Great general scholars, excellent physicians, [39]\n  Most admired statesmen, profest favourites,\n  And Cabinet counsellors to the greatest princes;\n  The only languaged men of all the world!\n\n  _Peregrine_. And I have heard, they are most lewd [40] impostors\n  Made all of terms and shreds, no less beliers\n  Of great men's favours, than their own vile med'cines...\n\nIn act iv. sc. 1, Sir Politick gives counsels to the young Peregrine,\nwhich are a manifest satire upon Polonius' fatherly farewell speech to\nLaertes; and here again, let it be observed, religious tendencies are\nmade the subject of persiflage.\n\n  _Sir Politick_. First, for your garb, it must\n  be grave and serious\n  Very reserved and locked; not tell a secret\n  On any terms, not to your father; scarce\n  A fable, but with caution; make sure choice\n  Both of your company and your discourse; beware\n  You never speak a truth--....\n  And then, for your religion, profess none,\n  But wonder at the diversity of all;\n  And, for your part, protest, were there no other\n  But simply the laws o' th' land, you could content you.\n  Nic Machiavel and Monsieur Bodin, both\n  Were of this mind.\n\nIn act iii. sc. 2, it is openly said that English authors namely, such\nas understand Italian, have stolen from Pastor Fido 'almost as much as\nfrom MONTAIGNI\u00c9' (Montaigne). In vain we have looked for traces of\nMontaigne's Essays in other dramas that have come down to us from that\nepoch. That Shakspere must have been conversant with the Italian tongue,\nCharles Armitage Brown has tried to prove, and according to our opinion\nhe has done so successfully. [41]\n\nThe talkative Lady Politick wishes to offer some distraction to the\napparently sick Volpone. She recommends him an Italian book in these\nwords:--\n\n    All our English writers,\n    I mean such as are happy in the Italian,\n    Will deign to steal out of this author mainly;\n    Almost as much as from _Montagni\u00e9_: [42]\n    He has so modern and facile a vein,\n    Fitting the time, and catching the court-ear! [43]\n\nWhen Sir Politick (act v. sc. 2) is to be arrested (he is suspected of\nhaving got up a conspiracy, and betrayed the Republic of Venice to the\nTurks), he asserts his innocence; and when his papers are to be examined,\nhe exclaims:--\n\n  Alas, Sir! I have none but notes\n  Drawn out of play-books--\n  And some essays. [44]\n\nMosca (act i-v. sc. 2), spurring on his counsel, says:--\n\n  Mercury sit upon your thundering tongue,\n  Or the _French Hercules_ [45] and make your language\n  As conquering as his club, to beat along,\n  As with a tempest, flat, our adversaries.\n\nHamlet, when asked by the King how he 'calls the play, answers:--'_The\nMouse-trap_.' Mosca calls his own cunningness with which he thinks\nhe can overreach his master, the '_Fox-trap_.'\n\nIf our intention were not to restrict this treatise to desirable limits,\nmany more satirical passages might be pointed out in 'Volpone,' which are\nmanifestly directed against 'Hamlet' and Shakspere. Those who take a\ndeeper interest in the subject, will discover not a few passages of this\nkind in 'Volpone.'\n\nIn 1605--we believe, a few months before 'Volpone' [46]--'Eastward Hoe'\ncame out, a comedy written by Ben Jonson, Chapman, and Marston, in which,\nas already stated, the connection between Hamlet and Ophelia is derided\nin a low, burlesque manner.\n\nShakspere, in order to flagellate Montaigne's mean views about womankind,\nputs into the mouth of Ophelia, when she has no longer the control of her\ntongue, the hideous words:--'Come, my coach!' and 'Oh, how the wheel\nbecome it!' [47] This is a satirical hit, rapidly indicated, but only\nunderstood by those who had carefully read Montaigne's book. Ben Jonson,\nChapman, and Marston try to make capital out of these expressions,\nby deriding and denouncing them to the crowd, in order to defame\nShakspere.\n\nGirtred (Gertrud, name of Hamlet's mother, the Queen,) is the figure\nunder which Ophelia is ridiculed in 'Eastward Hoe.' [48] The first is a\ngirl of loosest manners. Her ambition torments her to marry a nobleman,\nin order to obtain a 'coach.' To her mother (Mrs. Touchstone) she\nincessantly speaks words of most shameless indecency, which cannot be\nrepeated; more especially as regards her 'coach,' for which she asks\never and anon. A lackey, called _Hamlet_, must procure it to her.\nWe will give some fragments of that scene. The remainder cannot be offered\nto a modern circle of general readers.\n\n  _Enter_ Hamlet, _a Foote-man, in haste_.\n\n  _Hamlet_. What coachman--my ladye's coach! for shame!\n  Her ladiship's readie to come down.\n\n  _Enter_ Potkinne, _a Tankard-bearer_.\n\n  _Potkinne_. 'Sfoote! Hamlet, are you madde? Whither run\n  you nowe? You should brushe up my olde mistresse!\n\nThereupon neighbours come together, all impelled by the greatest\ncuriosity 'to see her take coach,' and wishing to congratulate her.\n\n  _Gertrud_. Thank you, good people! My coach for the love of\n  Heaven, my coach! In good truth, I shall swoune else.\n\n  _Hamlet_. Coach, coach, my ladye's coach! [_Exit_ Hamlet.\n\nAfter a little conversation between mother and daughter, which we must\nleave out, Hamlet enters again:\n\n  _Hamlet_. Your coach is coming, madam.\n\n  _Gertrud_. That's well said. Now Heaven! methinks I am eene up\n  to the knees in preferment....\n  But a little higher, but a little higher, but a little higher!\n  There, there, there lyes Cupid's fire!\n\n  _Mrs. Touchstone_. But must this young man (Hamlet), an't\n  please you, madam, run by your coach all the way a foote?\n\n  _Gertrud_. I by my faith, I warrant him; hee gives no other\n  milke, as I have another servant does.\n\n  _Mrs. Touchstone_. Ahlas! 'tis eene pittie meethinks; for God's\n  sake, madam, buy him but a hobbie horse; let the poore youth have\n  something betwixt his legges to ease 'hem. Alas! we must doe as we\n  would be done too.\n\nThat is all we dare to quote from this comedy; but it quite suffices\nto characterise the meanness of the warfare which Jonson's clique\ncarried on against Shakspere.\n\nHowever, the lofty ideas contained in 'Hamlet' could not be lowered by\nsuch an attack; they became the common property of the best and noblest.\nThose ideas were of too high a range, too abstract in their nature, to\nbe easily made a sport of before the multitude. A few pleasantries,\nused by Shakespeare in a moment of easy-going style, were laid hold\nof maliciously, and caricatured most indecently, by his antagonists,\nin order to entertain the common crowd there with. Innocent children,\nmoreover, were made to act such satires: 'little eyases, that cry\nout on the top of the question, and are most tyrannically clapped\nfor't: these are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages.'\n\nNot less than in 'Volpone,' the tendency of 'Hamlet' as regards religious\nquestions is, in the most evident manner, ridiculed in John Marston's\n'Malcontent.' Although this satire (so the play is called in the\npreface 'To the Reader') appeared before 'Volpone,' we yet thought\nit more useful first to speak of Jonson's comedy being the work of\nShakspere's most formidable adversary.\n\n'The Malcontent' was printed in 1604; and soon afterwards (in the same\nyear) a second edition appeared, augmented by the author, as well as\nenriched by a few additions from the pen of John Webster. [49] The\nplay is preceded by a Latin Dedication to Ben Jonson, which sufficiently\nshows that a close friendship must have existed, at that time, between\nthe two. [50] The satire is replete with phrases taken from 'Hamlet'\nfor the purpose of mockery; and they are introduced in the loosest,\nmost disconnected manner, thus doubly showing the intention\nand purpose. Marston's style is pointedly described in 'The Return\nfrom Parnassus;' and we do not hesitate to say that the following\ncriticism was written in consequence of his 'Malcontent:'--\n\n    Methinks he is a ruffian in his style,\n    Withouten bands or garters' ornament:\n    He quaffs a cup of Frenchman's [51] Helicon,\n    Then roister doister in his oily terms,\n    Cuts, thrusts, and foins at whomsoever he meets...\n    Tut, what cares he for modest close-couch'd terms,\n    Cleanly to gird our looser libertines?...\n    Ay, there is one, that backs a paper steed,\n    And manageth a penknife gallantly,\n    Strikes his poinardo at a button's breadth,\n    Brings the great battering-ram of terms to towns;\n    And, at first volley of his cannon-shot,\n    Batters the walls of the old fusty world.\n\nWho else can be indicated by the 'One' but Shakspere? To Marston's\nhollow creations, which drag the loftiest ideas through the mire to\namuse the vulgar, the sublime and serious discourses of Shakspere are\nopposed, which are destined to afford profoundest instruction. Is not\nthe whole tendency of 'Hamlet' described in the last two lines just\nquoted, in which it is stated that under this poet's attack the\nwalls of the _old fusty world_ are battered down? [52]\n\nThe chief character in 'The Malcontent' is a Duke of Genoa. Marston,\nin his preface 'To the Reader,' lays stress on the fact of this Duke\nbeing, not an historical personage, but a creation of fiction, so 'that\neven strangers, in whose State I laid my scene, should not from\nthence draw any disgrace to any, dead or living.' After having\ncomplained that, in spite of this endeavour of his, there are some\nwho have been 'most unadvisedly over-cunning in misinterpreting' him,\nand, 'with subtletie, have maliciously spread ill rumours,' he goes\non declaring that he desires 'to satisfie every firme spirit, who in\nall his actions proposeth to himself no more ends then God and vertue\ndo, whose intentions are alwaies simple.' Those only he means to\ncombat 'whose unquiet studies labor innovation, contempt of holy\npolicie, reverent comely superioritie and establisht unity.' He fears\nnot for the rest of his 'supposed tartnesse; but unto every worthy\nminde it will be approved so generall and honest as may modestly passe\nwith the freedome of a satyre.'\n\nThat this satire could only be directed against 'Hamlet,' every one\nwill be convinced who spends a short hour in reading Marston's\n'Malcontent.' Here, too, we must confine ourselves to pointing out\nonly the most important allusions; especially such as refer to\nreligion. Indeed, we would have to copy the whole play, in order\nto make it fully clear how much Marston, with his undoubted talent\nfor travesty, has succeeded in grotesquely deriding the lofty,\nnoble tone of Shakspere's drama.\n\nThe chief character in 'The Malcontent' is Malevole, the Duke of\nGenoa before-mentioned, who has been wrongfully deprived of the\ncrown. With subtle dissimulation, disguised and unknown, he\nhangs about the Court. Against the ladies especially, whom he\nall holds to be adulteresses, he entertains the greatest mistrust.\nHe watches every one; but most closely women. He is the image of\nmental distemper; and Pietro, the ruling Duke, describes him in\nact i. sc. 2 by saying that 'the elements struggle within him; his\nown soule is at variance within her selfe;' he is 'more discontent\nthan Lucifer.' In short, he confers upon him all the qualities\nof a 'Hamlet' character.\n\nWhenever religious questions are addressed to Malevole, we have to\nlook upon him as the very type of Shakspere himself, whom Marston\ntakes to task for his spirit of 'innovation' and his 'contempt of\nholy policie and establisht unity.' Shakspere, it ought to be\nremembered, had scourged Ben Jonson under the figure of Malvolio.\nMarston, who dedicates 'The Malcontent' to Jonson, no doubt wished\nto please Jonson by calling the chief character, which represents\nShakspere, Malevole.\n\nThe play opens with an abominable charivari. ('The vilest out-of-time\nmusicke being heard.') This is partly a hit against the Globe Theatre\nwhere--as we see from Shakspere's dramas--music was often introduced\nin a play; partly it is to indicate the disharmony of Malevole's\nmind.\n\nOnly a few travesties may be mentioned here, before we quote the\ntreatment of religious questions.\n\nIn act i. sc. 7 (here the scene is ridiculed in which Hamlet, with\ndrawn sword, stands behind the King), Pietro enters, 'his sword drawne.'\n\n  _Pietro_. A mischiefe fill thy throate, thou fowle-jaw'd slave!\n  Say thy praiers!\n\n  _Mendozo_. I ha forgot um.\n\n  _Pietro_. Thou shall die.\n\n  _Mendozo_. So shall Ihou.  I am heart-mad.\n\n  _Pietro_. I am horne-mad.\n\n  _Mendozo_. Extreme mad.\n\n  _Pietro. Monstrously mad.\n\n  _Mendozo_. Why?\n\n  _Pietro_. Why? thou, thou hast dishonoured my bed.\n\nHamlet's words: [53]--'O, most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity\nto incestuous sheets!' are so often ridiculed because Shakspere, instead\nof the word 'bed,' uses the more unusual 'sheets.'\n\nAurelia [54] speaks of 'chaste sheets,' Malevole [55] prophesies that\n'the Dutches (Duke, Doge) sheets will smoke for't ere it be long.'\nMendozo [56] 'hates all women, waxe-lightes, antique bed-postes,' &c.;\n'also sweete sheetes.' Aurelia, parodying the words Hamlet addresses\nto his mother, asks herself: 'O, judgement, where have been my eyes?\nWhat bewitched election made me dote on thee? what sorcery made me love\nthee?'\n\nThe counsel which Hamlet gives to his mother 'to throw away the worser\npart of her cleft heart,' Pietro ridicules in act i. sc. 7:--\n\n  My bosome and my heart,\n  When nothing helps, cut off the rotten part.\n\nThe splendid speech of Hamlet: 'What a piece of work is man!' sounds\nfrom Mendozo's [57] lips thus:--'In body how delicate; in soule how\nwittie; in discourse how pregnant; in life how warie; in favours how\njuditious; in day how sociable; in night how!--O pleasure unutterable!'\n\nHamlet's little monologue: [58] 'Tis now the very witching time of night,'\nruns thus with Mendozo:--[59]\n\n  'Tis now about the immodest waste of night;\n  The mother of moist dew with pallide light\n  Spreads gloomie shades about the mummed earth.\n  Sleepe, sleepe, whilst we contrive our mischiefes birth.\n\nThen, parodying Hamlet as he draws forth the dead Polonius from behind\nthe arras, Mendozo says:--\n\n  This man Ile (I'll) get inhumde.\n\nThus, all kinds of Shaksperian incidents and locutions are brought\nforward, wherever they are apt to produce the most comic effect. Several\ntimes, from the beginning, the 'weasel' is mentioned with which Hamlet\nrallies Polonius. We also hear of the 'sponge which sucks'--a simile\nused by Hamlet (act iv. sc. 3) in regard to Rosencrantz. Nor is the\n'true-penny' forgotten--a word used by Hamlet [60] to designate his\nfather's ghost as a true and genuine one; nor the 'Hillo, ho, ho.'\n\nIn all these allusions, of which an attentive reader might easily find\nscores, there is no systematic order of thoughts. Only in the religious\nquestions we meet with a clear system: they are all addressed to Malevole,\nwho is represented as a kind of freethinker, similar to the one whom\nMarston, in his preface, wishes to be outlawed, and of whom he says\nthat he fully merits the 'tartness' and freedom of his satire. In the\nvery beginning of 'The Malcontent,' Pietro asks Malevole:\n\n  I wonder what religion thou art of?\n\n  _Malevole_. Of a souldiers religion. [61]\n\n  _Pietro_. And what doost thinke makes most infidells now?\n\n  _Malevole_. Sects. Sects! I have seene seeming Pietie change\n  her roabe so oft, that sure none but some arch-divell can shape her\n  pitticoate.\n\n  _Pietro_. O! a religious pllicie.\n\n  _Malevole_. But damnation on a politique religion!\n\nIn act ii. sc. 5 we find the following:--\n\n\n   _Malevole_. I meane turne pure Rochelchurchman. [62]\n   I--\n\n   _Mendozo_. Thou Churchman! Why? Why?\n\n   _Malevole_. Because He live lazily, raile upon authoritie,\n   deny Kings supremacy in things indifferent, and be a pope in mine owne\n   parish.\n\n   _Mendozo_. Wherefore doost thou thinke churches were made?\n\n   _Malevole_. To scowre plow-shares. I have seene oxen plow\n   uppe altares: _Et nunc seges ubi Sion fuit_.\n\nThen there is again what appears to be an allusion to Hamlet, act i.\nsc. 4, resembling that in 'Volpone':--\n\n  I have seen the stoned coffins of long-flead Christians burst up\n  and made hogs troughs.\n\nIn act iv. sc. 4, Mendozo says to Malevole, whom he wishes to use for\nthe murder of a hermit:--\n\n  Yea, provident. Beware an hypocrite!\n  A Church-man once corrupted, Oh avoide!\n  A fellow that makes religion his stawking horse.\n  He breeds a plague. Thou shalt poison him.\n\nFrom the many hints in 'Volpone' and in 'The Malcontent,' it clearly\nfollows that Shakspere was to be represented, in those dramas, before\nthe public at large, as an Atheist. [63] According to Jonson, he\ncounted 'ALL OLD DOCTRINE HERESIE.' According to Marston, he\nhad an aversion for all sects, and 'CONTEMPT OF HOLY POLICIE,\nREVERENT COMELY SUPERIORITIE, AND ESTABLISHT UNITIE.' We hope we\nhave convinced our readers that Shakspere spoke in matters of religion\nas clearly as his 'tongue-tied muse' [64] permitted him to do. Above\nall, we think of having successfully proved that the controversy\nof 'Hamlet' is directed against doctrines which assert that there is\nnothing but evil in human nature.\n\nShakspere's prophetic glance saw the pernicious character of Montaigne's\ninconsistent thoughts, which, unable to place us in sound relation to the\nUniverse, only succeed in making men pass their lives in subtle\nreflection and unmanly, sentimental inaction. Shakspere, intending to\navert the blighting influence of such a philosophy from the best and\nforemost of his country, wrote his 'Hamlet.' As a truly heaven-born\npoet he bound for ever, by Thought's enduring chain,\n\n  All that flows unfixed and undefined\n  In glimmering phantasy before the mind.\n\nIn spite of the powerful impression his master-work, 'Hamlet,' has made\nupon all thinking minds, the deepest and most serious meaning of\nShakspere's warning words could not have been fathomed by the many.\nThe parables through which a Prophet spoke were cast into the form of a\ntheatrical play, not easy to understand for the mass of men; for\n'tongue-tied' was his Muse by earthly powers. And Shakspere deeply felt\nthe disgrace of being compelled to give forth his utterances in so\ndubious a manner.\n\nHis Sonnets [65] express the feeling that weighed upon him on this account.\nHad he not 'gor'd his own thoughts,' revealed his innermost soul? Yet,\nnow, his narrow-minded fellow-dramatists--but no! not fellow-dramatists:\nmere contemporary playwrights, immeasurably far behind him in rank--eaten\nup, as they were, with envy and jealous malice, meanly derided everything\nsacred to him; holding up his ideals to ridicule before a jeering\ncrowd. It has long ago been surmised that Sonnet lxvi. belongs to the\n'Hamlet' period. But now it will be better understood why that sonnet\nspeaks of 'a maiden virtue rudely strumpeted; [66] of 'right perfection\nwrongfully disgrac'd, and strength by limping sway disabled;' of 'simple\ntruth miscall'd simplicity.'\n\nThese are the full words of this mighty sigh of despair:--\n\n  Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry--\n  As, to behold desert a beggar born,\n  And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,\n  And purest faith unhappily forsworn,\n  And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd,\n  And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,\n  And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd,\n  And strength by limping sway disabled,\n  And art made tongue-ty'd by authority,\n  And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,\n  And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,\n  And captive Good attending captain ill:\n  Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone,\n  Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.\n\n'Purest faith unhappily forsworn' was Shakspere's faith in God--without\nany 'holy policie' and without 'old doctrines'--trusting above all in\nthe majesty of ennobled human nature. He was a veritable Humanist,\nthe truest and greatest, who ever strove to raise the most essential\npart of human nature, man's soul and mind, yet by no mean supernatural,\nbut by 'mean that Nature makes.'\n\nShakspere's 'Hamlet' appears to us like a solemn admonition to his\ndistinguished friends. He showed them, under the guise of that Prince,\na nobleman without fixed ideal--'virtues which do not go forth' to\nassert themselves, and to do good for the sake of others--noble life\nwasted, letting the world remain 'out of joint' without determined will\nto set it right: this was the poet's prophetic warning.\n\nOne aspiration of Shakspere clearly shines through his career, in\nwhatever darkness it may otherwise be enveloped--namely, his longing to\nacquire land near the town he was born in. When he had realised this\nambition, he cheerfully seems to have left the splendour of town life,\nand to have readily renounced all literary fame; for he did not even care\nto collect his own works.\n\nHe was contented to cultivate his native soil: a giant Antaeus who, as\nthe myth tells us, ever had to touch Mother Earth to regain his strength.\n\n 1: _Volpone_ is stated to have been first acted in the Globe Theatre\n   in 1605. It is simply impossible that this drama, in its present shape,\n   should have been given in that theatre as long as Shakspere\n   was actively connected with it. We therefore must assume that\n   Shakspere--as Delius holds it to be probable--had at that time\n   already withdrawn to Stratford, or that the biting allusions which\n   are contained in _Volpone_ against the great Master, had been added\n   between 1605 (the year of its first performance) and 1607 (the year\n   of its appearance in print). We consider the latter opinion the\n   likelier one, as we suspect, from allusions in _Epicoene_,\n   that Shakspere, when this play was published, still resided in\n   London. However, it is also probable that in 1605 he may for a\n   while have withdrawn from the stage.\n\n 2: In this enumeration, Jonson seems to have the various Qualities of the\n   Essays in view which Florio calls 'Morall, Politike, and Millitarie.'\n\n 3: Against Montaigne, '_the teacher of things divine no less than\n   human_,' Shakspere's whole argumentation in 'Hamlet' is directed.\n\n 4: Here we have the noble Knight of the Order of St. Michael, as well\n   as the courtier and Mayor of Bordeaux.\n\n 5: Montaigne was Knight of the Order of St. Michael, and\n   Chamberlain of Henry III. He was on terms of friendship with\n   Henry IV. Both Kings he had as guests in his own house. In his\n   _Essai de Vanitie_, Montaigne also relates with great pride\n   and satisfaction, that during his sojourn at Rome he was made a\n   burgess of that city, 'the most noble that ever was, or ever shall\n   be.'\n\n 6: In spite of Gifford's protest we do not hesitate to maintain\n   that Jonson's Epigram LVI. (_On Poet-Ape_) is directed against\n   Shakspere, and that the poet whom Jonson--in the Epistle XII.\n   (_Forest_) to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland--abuses, is\n   also none else than Shakspere.\n\n 7: Montaigne died in 1592.\n\n 8: We can only quote the most striking points, and must leave it to\n   the reader who takes a deeper interest in the subject, to give his\n   own closer attention to the dramas concerning the controversy.\n\n 9: _Gentlemen of Verona_; _Comedy of Errors_; _Love's Labour Lost_;\n   _Love's Labour Won_ (probably _All's Well that Ends Well_); _Midsummer\n   Night's Dream_; _Merchant of Venice_. Of Tragedies: _Richard the\n   Second_; _Richard the Third_; _Henry the Fourth_; _King John_; _Titus\n   Andronicus_; _Romeo and Juliet_.\n\n10: As the words that follow seem to contain an allusion to\n   Shakspere's _Hamlet_, it is to be supposed that by the\n   'melting heir' Jonson points to some protector of the great poet.\n   Whether this be William Herbert, or the Earl of Southampton, we\n   must leave undecided.\n\n11: Act i. sc. 4.\n\n12: Jonson probably calls Shakspere an hermaphrodite because,\n   having a wife, he cultivated an intimate friendship at the same time\n   with William Herbert, the later Earl of Pembroke. Jonson's _Epicoene,\n   or The Silent Woman_ (1609) satirises this connection. We are\n   not the first in making this assertion. (See _Sonnets of Shakspere\n   Solved_, by Henry Brown: London, 1876, p. 16.)\n\n   In Epicoene a College is described, which is stated to be\n   composed of women. Instead of women, we may boldly assume men to\n   be meant. Truewitt thus describes the new Society:--\n\n   'A new foundation, Sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call\n   themselves the Collegiates: an order between courtiers and country\n   madams that live from their husbands, and give entertainment to all\n   the wits and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up,\n   what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine\n   or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their\n   College some new probationer.\n\n     _Clerimont_.  Who is the president?\n     _Truewitt_.   The grave and youthful matron, the Lady Haughty.'\n\n   Shakspere at that time was in the 'matronly' age of forty-five.\n   We have seen how a 'dislike in a brain' has been expressed in _Hamlet_.\n\n13: The name of Ovid, likewise used in that eulogy, Jonson assigned,\n   in his _Poetaster_, to Marston. (See _note_ 22 at end of\n   Section V.)\n\n14: It would have been most strange, indeed, if the two greatest\n   geniuses of their time had not exercised some influence on each\n   other; if the greatest thinker of that age had not given some\n   suggestive thoughts to the poet; and if the poet had not animated\n   the thinker to the cultivation of art, inducing him to offer his\n   philosophical thoughts in beautiful garment. Hence Mrs. Henry Pott\n   may have found vestiges of a more perfected and nobler style in\n   Bacon's _Diaries_, on which she founded her wild theory. Had not Kant\n   and Fichte great influence on their contemporary, Schiller? Does\n   not Goethe praise the influence exercised by Spinoza upon him? Let\n   us assume that the latter two had been contemporaries; that they\n   had lived in the same town. Would it not have been extraordinary\n   if they had remained intellectual strangers to each other, instead\n   of drawing mutual advantage from their intercourse? Why should\n   Bacon not have been one of the noblemen who, after the performance\n   of a play, were initiated, in the Mermaid Tavern, into the more\n   hidden meaning of a drama? Is it not rather likely that Bacon\n   drew Shakspere's attention to the inconsistencies of Montaigne?\n\n15: The advocates, in festive processions, made use of mules. Maybe\n   that Jonson calls Shakspere a 'good dull mule' because in _Hamlet_\n   he champions the views of 'Sir Lawyer' Bacon.\n\n16: This notion, that Shakspere has mainly distinguished himself in\n   the comic line--in the representation of Foolery--harmonises\n   with Jonson's opinion, as privately expressed in _Timber; or,\n   Discoveries made upon Men and Matter_ (1630-37), in a noteworthy\n   degree. There he says of Shakspere:--'His wit was in his own power.\n   Would the rule of it had been so, too.'\n\n17: An allusion to Shakspere's unclassical metrics, and his great\n   success among the public, although in Jonson's opinion he brings\n   neither regular 'play nor university show.'\n\n18: In Androgyno, whom he brings in.\n\n19: This is Jonson's answer to the question raised in _Twelfth Night_\n   (act iv. sc. 2), when Malvolio is in prison, in regard to Pythagoras.\n\n20: We can nowhere find any clue to such a personage of antiquity,\n   and we take it to be a reference to Pyrrhon of Elis, the founder\n   of the sceptic school.\n\n21: Bacon was a friend of this sport. Mrs. Pott points out some\n   technical expressions which we find both in Bacon's works and in\n   Shakspere. Perhaps we might stretch our fancy so far as to assume\n   that Bacon is Pyrrhus of Delos, and that gentle Shakspere\n   sometimes went a-fishing with him on the banks of the Thames.\n\n22: 'As itself doth relate it.' Yet the soul does not relate anything,\n   except that it is said to have spoken, in all the characters it\n   assumed, 'as in the cobbler's cock.' We must, therefore, probably\n   look in plays--in Shakspere's dramas--for that which the soul has\n   spoken in its various stages as a king, as a beggar, and so forth.\n\n23: 'Brock' (badger)--a word which Shakspere only uses once;\n   viz. in _Twelfth Night_ (act ii. sc. 5). Sir Toby's whole\n   indignation against Malvolio culminates in the words:--'Marry,\n   hang thee, brock!' We know of Jonson's unseemly bodily figure,\n   his 'ambling' gait, which rendered him unfit for the stage. The\n   pace of a badger would be a very graphic description of his manner\n   of walking. Now, Jonson sneers at the word 'brock' in a way not\n   unfrequent with Shakspere himself, in regard to various words used\n   by Jonson against him. In _The Poetaster_, Tucca falls out\n   against the 'wormwood' comedies, which drag everything on to the\n   stage. We are reminded here of Hamlet's exclamation:--'Wormwood,\n   wormwood!' when the Queen of the Interlude speaks the two lines he\n   had probably intercalated:--\n\n     In second husband let me be accurst!\n     None wed the second but who kill'd the first.\n\n24: 'Cobbler's cock' refers most likely to a drama by Robert\n   Wilson, entitled: _Cobbler's Prophecy_. In Collier's\n   _History of the English Drama_ (iii. pp. 247-8) it is thus\n   described:--\n\n   'It is a mass of absurdity without any leading purpose, but here and\n   there exhibiting glimpses of something better. The scene of the play\n   is laid in Boeotia which is represented to be ruled by a duke, but\n   in a state of confusion and disorganisation.... One of the principal\n   characters is a whimsical Cobbler who, by intermediation of the\n   heathen god Mercury, obtains prophetic power, the chief object\n   of which is to warn the Duke of the impending ruin of his state\n   unless he consents to introduce various reforms, and especially\n   to unite the discordant classes of his subjects.' Jonson may have\n   looked upon _Hamlet_ in this manner from his point of view.\n   It is for us to admire the prophetical spirit of Shakspere who\n   in Montaigne perceived the germ of the helplessly divided nature\n   of modern man.\n\n 25: 'Or his great oath, by _Quarter_.' No doubt, this is an\n   allusion of Jonson to Shakspere's 'quarter share,' the fourth\n   part of the receipts of his company. The Blackfriars Theatre had\n   sixteen shareholders. It is proved that Shakspere at that time,\n   when a valuation of the theatre was made, had a claim to four\n   parts, each of \u00a3233 6s. 8d. (Chr. Armitage Brown, _Shak.\n   Autobiographical Poems_, London, 1838, p. 101). In _The\n   Poetaster_ (act iii. sc. i), Tucca says to Crispinus the\n   Poetaster:--'Thou shall have a quarter share.' In Epistle xii.\n   (_Forest_), which Jonson addresses to Elizabeth, Countess\n   of Rutland, and which, in our opinion, also contains an allusion\n   to Shakspere, as well as to his protector, William Herbert, Ben\n   speaks of poets with 'their quarter face.'\n\n26: Shakspere often introduced music in his dramas. Jonson ridicules\n   this; so did Marston, as we shall see. (_Twelfth Night_, for instance,\n   opens with music.)\n\n27: 'His golden thigh.' The shape of the legs, the 'yellow cross-gartered\n   stockings' of poor Malvolio in _Twelfth Night_ are here ridiculed.\n\n28: Malvolio says to his friends:--'I am not of your element.' In\n   the same play, great sport is made of this word, until the Fool himself\n   at last gets weary of it, when he says (act iii. sc. i):--'You are\n   out of my welkin--I might say _element_, but the word is overworn.'\n\n29: Blackfriars, where Shakspere first acted, was a former cloister.\n   'On fish, when first a Carthusian I entered,' no doubt means that\n   from the beginning he had preferred keeping mute as a fish, in regard\n   to forbidden matters of the Church.\n\n30: I.e., _Christmas_-pie. In the Prologue of _The Return from\n   Parnassus_, this comedy is called a _Christmas Toy_.\n   Shakspere is therein lavishly praised by his brother actors,\n   whereas Jonson is spoken of as 'a bold whoreson, as confident now\n   in making of a book, as he was in times past in laying of a brick.'\n   A veritable libel!\n\n31: _Hamlet_ (act v. sc. 2):--\n\n      Methought, I lay\n      Worse than the mutines in the bilboes\n\n32: Through Jonson's satire we always see the sanctimonious Jesuit\n   peering out.\n\n33: These are the parables in which Hamlet speaks. Many a reader will\n   understand why Shakspere could not use more explicit language.\n\n34: So the envious Jonson calls Shakspere's public who are satisfied with\n   'salad;' that is, with patchy compositions, pieced together from all\n   kinds of material.\n\n35: Jonson had Scottish ancestry.\n\n36: In a moment of fanaticism, Hamlet wishes Ophelia to go to a\n   nunnery. Jonson, in most cynical manner, means to say that\n   Hamlet had been impotent as regards his _innamorata_. Though\n   'for the nones' may be taken as 'for the nonce,' it yet comes close\n   enough to a _double-entendre_--namely, 'for the _nuns_.'\n\n37: _Dramatic versus  Wit Combats_. London, 1864. Ed. John Russell\n   Smith.\n\n38: To mount a bank = mountebank.\n\n39: From one of them poor Ben received a _vile medicine_: a _purge_.\n\n40: 'Lewd'=unlearned.\n\n41: Shakspere's _Autobiographical Poems_.\n\n42: Karl Elze (_Essays on Shakespeare_; London 1874) thinks this passage\n   is intended against Shakespeare's alleged theft committed in the\n   _Tempest_, the composition of which he, therefore, places in the year\n   1604-5, while most critics assign it to a much later period. It must\n   also be mentioned that Karl Elze draws attention to the more friendly\n   words with which Jonson, in his own handwriting, dedicates his _Volpone_\n   to Florio.\n\n   In the opinion of the German critic, it is not difficult to gather from\n   this Dedication the desire of the meanly quarrelsome scholar Jonson\n   to give his friend Florio to understand that, among other things, he\n   would read with considerable satisfaction how he (Jonson) had made short\n   work with this 'Shake-scene' and this 'upstart Crow.'\n\n43: Dekker tells Horace that his--Johnson's--plays are misliked at Court.\n   According to the above-quoted words of Jonson, _Hamlet_ seems to have\n   pleased at Court on its first appearance.\n\n44: The following passage in Jonson's _Epicoene_ is also\n   interesting, though in the play itself it is not made to refer to\n   Montaigne but apparently to Plutarch and Seneca: 'Grave asses! mere\n   essayists: a few loose sentences, and that's all. A man could talk\n   so his whole age. I do utter as good things every hour if they were\n   collected  and observed, as either of them.' May not such words have\n   fallen from Shakspere's lips, in regard to Montaigne, before an\n   intimate circle in the Mermaid Tavern?\n\n45: This may point either to Montaigne or to Dr. Guinne, the\n   fellow-worker of Florio in the translation of the Essays, whom the\n   latter calls 'a monster-quelling Theseus or Hercules.'\n\n46: The reasons which induce us to this opinion are the following:\n   The three authors of _Eastward Hoe_ were arrested on account of a\n   satire contained in this play against the Scots; James I., himself\n   a Scot, having become King of England a year before. The audacious\n   stage-poets were threatened with having their noses and ears cut\n   off. They were presently freed, however; probably through the\n   intervention of some noblemen. Soon afterwards, Jonson was again\n   in prison; and we suspect that this second imprisonment took place\n   in consequence of _Volpone_. We base this view on several incidents.\n   In a letter Jonson addressed in 1605, from his place of confinement,\n   to Lord Salisbury (_Ben Jonson_, edited by Cunningham, vol. i. xlix.),\n   he says that he regrets having once more to apply to his kindness\n   on account of a play, after having scarcely repented 'his first\n   error' (most probably _Eastward Hoe_).' Before I can shew myself\n   grateful in the least for former benefits, I am enforced to provoke\n   your bounties for more.' In this letter, Jonson uses a tone similar\n   to the one which pervades his Dedication of _Volpone_. We therefore\n   believe that both letter and Dedication have reference to one and\n   the same matter. In the letter, Jonson addresses Lord Salisbury in\n   this way:--'My noble lord, they deal not charitably who are witty in\n   another man's work, and utter sometimes their own malicious meanings\n   under our words.' He then continues, protesting that since his first\n   error, which was punished more with his shame than with his bondage,\n   he has only touched at general vice, sparing particular persons. He\n   goes on:--'I beseech your most honourable Lordship, suffer not other\n   men's errors or faults past to be made my crimes; but let me be\n   examined by all my works past and this present; and trust not to\n   Rumour, but my books (for she is an unjust deliverer, both of\n   great and of small actions), whether I have ever (many things I\n   have written private and public) given offence to a nation, to a\n   public order or state, or any person of honour or authority; but\n   have equally laboured to keep their dignity, as my own person,\n   safe.'\n\n   Now, let us compare the following verses from the second Prologue\n   of _Epicoene_ (the plural here becomes the singular):--\n\n     If any yet will, with particular sleight\n     Of application, (Occasioned by some person's impertinent\n     Exceptions.)\n     wrest what he doth write;\n     And that he meant, or him, or her, will say:\n     They make a libel, which he made a play.\n\n   Nor will it be easy to find out who was the cause of _Volpone_ having\n   been persecuted at one time--that is to say, forbidden to be acted\n   on the stage. (Perchance by the 'obstreperous Sir Lawyer' who is\n   mentioned in it?)\n\n   We direct the reader's attention to the eulogistic poems composed\n   by Jonson's friends on _Volpone_. (_Ben Jonson_, by Cunningham, vol.\n   i. pp. civ.-cv.) First there are the extraordinary praises written\n   by those who sign their names in full:--J. DONNE, E. BOLTON, FRANCIS\n   BEAUMONT. Then follow verses, probably composed somewhat later,\n   which are cautiously signed by initials only--D. D., J. C., G. C.,\n   E. S., J. F., T. R. This is not the case with any other eulogistic\n   poems referring to Jonson's dramas. The verses before mentioned,\n   which are only signed by initials, all speak of a 'persecuted fox,\n   or of a fox killed by hounds.'\n\n47: 'Come, my coach!' means: 'I value my honour less than my coach.'\n   The expression, 'O, how the wheel becomes it!' is of such a character\n   that we must refer the reader to Montaigne's Essay III. 11.\n\n48: _Eastward Hoe_< was acted in the Blackfriars Theatre by\n   'The Children of Her Majestie's Revels.'\n\n49: Until now it has been assumed that The Malcontent was acted by\n   Shakspere's Company in the Globe Theatre. This conclusion was\n   based on the title-page of the drama, which runs thus:--\n\n     THE MALCONTENT\n     _Augmented by Marston_\n     _With the Additions played by the Kings_\n     MAIESTIES SERVANTS\n     _Written\n     by_ JOHN WEBSTER.\n\n   It is, however, to be noted that in regard to all other plays of\n   Marston, whenever it is mentioned by whom they were acted (so,\n   for instance, in regard to _The Parasitaster_, the _Dutch Courtesane_,\n   and _Eastward Hoe_), the title is always indicated in this way\n   (designating both the Theatre and the Company):--'As it was plaid\n   in the Black Friars by the Children of her Maiesties Revels.' Again,\n   the mere perusal of the 'Induction' of _The Malcontent_ (not to speak\n   of the drama itself) shows that this play could not have been acted\n   'by the Kings Maiesties servants' during Shakspere's membership. For,\n   in this Induction there appear four actors of Shakspere's company:\n   Sly, Burbadge, Condell, and Lowin. They are brought in to justify\n   themselves why they act a certain play, 'another Company having\n   interest in it.' One of the actors excuses their doing so by saying\n   that, as they themselves have been similarly robbed, they have a\n   clear right to Malevole, the chief character in _The Malcontent_.\n   'Why not Malevole in folio with us, as Jeronimo _in decimo sexto_\n   with them? They taught us a name for our play: we call it: \"_One\n   for Another_.\"' (That is to say, we give them 'Tit for Tat.')\n\n     _Sly_. What are your additions?\n     _Burbadge_. Sooth, not greatly needefull, only as your\n     sallet (salad) to your greate feast--to entertaine a little more\n     time, and to abridge the not received custome of musicke in our\n     theater. I must leave you, Sir. [_Exit_ Burbadge.\n     _Sinklow_. Doth he play _The Malcontent_?\n     _Condell_. Yes, Sir.\n\n   Our explanation of the Induction is this: Marston has committed\n   satirical trespass upon _Hamlet_. Shakspere, on his part, made\n   use of the chief action and the chief characters of _The Malcontent_\n   in his _Measure for Measure_ ('One for Another'); but he did so in\n   his own nobler manner. From the wildly confused material before\n   him he composed a magnificent drama. Once more, in the very beginning\n   of act i. sc. I, Shakspere makes the Duke utter words, each of which\n   is directed against the inactive nature of Montaigne:--\n\n     Thyself and thy belongings\n     Are not thine own so proper as to waste\n     Thyself upon thy virtues, them on thee.\n     ...For if our virtues\n     Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike\n     As if we had them not.\n\n   Shakspere's contemporaries were not over careful as regards\n   style. 'With the additions played by the Kings Maiesties Servants,\n   written by John Webster,' means that the additions, in which\n   the servants of His Majesty, in the 'Induction,' are brought on the\n   stage, were written by John Webster.\n\n   Read the 'Extempore Prologue' which Sly speaks at the conclusion of\n   the Induction--a shameless travesty of the Epilogue in _As You\n   Like It_. Read the beginning of act iii. sc. 2 of _The Malcontent_,\n   where Malevole ('in some freeze gown') burlesques the splendid\n   monologue in King Henry the Fourth (Part 11. act iv. sc. I). Read\n   act iii. sc. 3 of _The Malcontent_, where Marston sneers at the scene\n   in act iv. of _King Richard the Second_ when Richard says:--\n\n     Now is this golden crown like a deep well,\n     That owes two buckets filling one another.\n\n50: Is it imaginable that Shakspere could have allowed his own\n   most beautiful productions to be thus leered at, and mocked,\n   in his own theatre? Our feeling rebels against the thought.\n\n     Beniamini Jonsonio\n     Poetae Elegantissimo Gravissimo\n     Amico Suo Candido et Cordato\n     Johannes Marston, Musarum Alumnus,\n     Asperam Hanc Suam Thaliam DD.\n\n51: Who else can be meant by the 'Frenchman's Helicon' than\n   Montaigne? He is satirically called 'Helicon,' as he is taken down\n   from his height in 'Hamlet.'\n\n52: In meaning alike to Jonson's: 'Counting all old doctrine heresie.'\n\n53: Act i. sc.2.\n\n54: Act iv. sc. 5.\n\n55: Act i. sc. 4.\n\n56: Act i. sc. 7.\n\n57: Act i. sc. 6.\n\n58: Act iii. sc. 2.\n\n59: Act ii. sc. 5.\n\n60: Act i. Sc. 5 in _Hamlet_; _Malcontent_, act iii. sc. 3.\n\n61: Perhaps an allusion to the conclusion of _Hamlet_, when the\n   State falls into the hands of a soldier (Fortinbras).\n   --Soldaten-Religion, keine Religion ('a soldier's religion, no\n   religion'), as the old German saying is.\n\n62: Rochelle-Churchman--that is, Huguenot.\n\n63: See Bacon's Essay, _Of Atheism_: 'All that impugn a received\n   religion or superstition are by the adverse part branded with the\n   name of Atheists.'\n\n64: Sonnet lxvi. lxxxv.\n\n65: xc. xci. xcii.\n\n66: In _Eastward Hoe_, his most delicate poetical production,\n   Ophelia, is most abominably parodied--'rudely strumpeted.'","title":"Shakspere and Montaigne: An Endeavour to Explain the Tendency of 'Hamlet' from Allusions in Contemporary Works","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":53765}