Part 3 (1/2)

Let us then impartially examine the character and the work of Montaigne.

If we discover contradictions in both, we shall not endeavour to argue them away, but present them with matter-of-fact fidelity; for it is on those very contradictions that the enigmatic, as yet unexplained, character of Hamlet reposes.

1: Collier's _Drama_, i. 265.

2: _Kind-hartes Dreame_, 1592.

3: Act v. sc. 4.

4: Act v sc. 4.

5: Act iii sc. 5.

6: _The Return from Parna.s.sus_, act v. sc. I.

7: _Ibid._, act iv. sc. 3.

8: _The Pardoner and the Friar_: 1533.

9: Collier's _Drama_, i. 104.

10: _The Political Use of the Stage in Shakspere's Time_.

New Shakspere Society: 1874, ii. p. 371.

Henry Stalbrydge, _Epistle Exhortatory_, &c.: 1544.

11: This threat was uttered against Chapman, Ben Jonson, and Marston on account of _Eastward Hoe_.

12: Von Raumer, ii. p. 219.

13: Marston's _Malcontent_: Dedication.

14: Act i. sc. I.

15: It is very characteristic that, in this serious piece also, low humour was still largely employed. In printing--the publisher remarks--the pa.s.sages in question were left out, as derogatory 'to so honourable and stately a history.'

16: _The Politics of Shakspere's Historical Plays_. New Shakspere Society, ii. 1874.

17: _Antonius and Cleopatra_, act i. sc. 4.

18: We mean the usually received text, seeing that the folio edition of 1623 contains some pa.s.sages which are wanting in the quarto edition, and _vice versa_.

19: Montaigne's _Essays_, which were published in folio, may have had the same price as Shakspere's folio of 1623. The latter was only re-issued in 1632 and 1664, whilst the former came out in new editions in 1613 and 1632.

20: 'Icy un amas de fleur estrangieres, n'y ayant fourny du mien que le filet a les lier' (iii. 12).

21: _Winter's Tale_, act iv. sc. 3.

III.

MONTAIGNE.