Part 5 (1/2)

26: II. 12.

27: Essay III. 10.

28: _Ibid_. 12.

29. Florio, 575.

30: Essay III. 9.

31: III. 13.

32: Essay II. 12.

33: III. 13.

34: _Observations on an Autograph of Shakspere_. London, 1838.

35: This is the pa.s.sage, which occurs in the _Tempest_, act ii.

sc. I:

'_Gonzalo_.--I' the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things: for no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name of magistrate: Letters should not be known; riches, poverty, And use of service, none; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; No occupation: all men idle, all; And women too.'

This pa.s.sage is almost literally taken from Essay I. 30, 'On Cannibals.' We shall later on show Shakspere's reason for giving us this fanciful description of such an Utopian commonwealth.

36: Florio, after enumerating the difficulties he encountered in the translation of the _Essays_, concludes his preface to the courteous reader with the following words:--

'In summe, if any think he could do better, let him trie, then will he better think of what is done. Seven or eight of great wit and worth have a.s.sayed, but found those Essais no attempt for French apprentises or Littletonians. If thus done it may please you, as I wish it may and I hope it shall, and I with you shall be pleased: though not, yet still I am.'

We learn, from this remark, of what great importance the _Essais_ must have been considered in literary circles, and it is not improbable that a few attempts 'of the seven or eight of great wit and worth' may have appeared in print long before Florio's translation. We may well ask: Is it likely that the greatest literary genius of his age should have been unaware of the existence of a work which was considered of such importance that 'seven or eight of great wit and worth' thought it worth while to attempt to translate it? Shakspere, who in _King Henry the Fifth_ (1599) wrote some scenes in French, must surely have had sufficient knowledge of this language to read it.

37: Besides the quartos of 1603 and 1604, thee were reprints of the latter in 1605 and 1611; also another edition without date.

IV.

HAMLET.

In the foregoing sketch of Montaigne our especial object was to point out the inconsistency of the French writer in advising us to follow Nature as our guide, yet at the same time maintaining a strict adherence to tenets and dogmas which qualify the impulses and inclinations of nature as sinful, and which even declare war against them.

Let us see how Shakspere incarnates these contrasts in the character of Hamlet.

He makes the Danish Prince come back from the University of Wittenberg.

There, we certainly may a.s.sume, he has become imbued with the new spirit that then shook the world. We refrain from mentioning it by name, because the designation we now confer upon it has become a lifeless word, comprising no longer those free thoughts of the Humanist, for which Shakspere, in this powerful tragedy, boldly enters the lists.

Hamlet longs to be back to Wittenberg. This desire represents his inclination towards free, humanistic studies. On the other hand, his adherence to old dogmatic views can be deduced from the fact of his being so terribly impressed by the circ.u.mstance of his father having had to die

Unhousel'd, disappointed, unaneled;

a fact recorded with a threefold outcry:--

Oh, horrible! Oh, horrible! most horrible!