Part 11 (2/2)

Shakspere broke with all antiquated doctrines. He was one of the foremost Humanists in the fullest and n.o.blest meaning of the word. [84]

1: Essay II. 12.

2: Essay I. 26.

3: The whole contents of this chapter may be said to be condensed into two lines of Shakspere:--

'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'

4: Essay III. 13.

5: See Bacon's Essay 'Of Simulation and Dissimulation,' where he says that 'dissimulation followeth many times upon secrecy by a necessity: so that he that will be secret must be a dissembler in some degree,' &c.

6: The following are Hamlet's modes of a.s.severation:-- 'Angels and ministers of grace,' 'All you host of Heaven,' 'G.o.d's love,' 'G.o.d and mercy,' 'G.o.d's willing,' 'Help and mercy,' 'G.o.d's love,' 'By St. Patrick,' 'G.o.d-a-mercy,' 'By my fay (_ma foi_),'

'S' blood (G.o.d's blood),' 'S' wounds,' 'G.o.d's bodykins,' 'By'r Lady,'

'Perdy (_Pardieu_),' 'By the rood (Cross),' 'Heavenly guards,' 'For love and grace,' 'By the Lord,' 'Pray G.o.d,' &c.

7: New Shakspere Society (Stubbs, _Abuses in England_), 1879, p. 131.

8: Act ii. sc. 2.

9: Act ii. sc. i.

10: This description is wanting in the first quarto. The pa.s.sages there are essentially different; there is no allusion to Hamlet's mental struggle.

11: About various allusions and satirical hints in this scene later on.

12: Florio, 21; Montaigne, I. ii.

13: Essay III. i.

14: Isaiah, ch. iii. v. 16.

15: The word 'ecstasy,' which is often used in the new quarto, is wanting in the first edition where only madness, lunacy, frenzy--the highest degrees of madness--are spoken of.

16: In the old play their names are 'Rosencroft' and 'Guilderstone.'

_Reynaldo_, in the first quarto, is called '_Montano_.'

This change of name in a _dramatis persona_ of minor importance indicates, in however a trifling manner, that the interest excited by the name of Montaigne (to which 'Montano' comes remarkably near in English p.r.o.nunciation) was now to be concentrated on another point.

17: Essay I. 40.

18: II. 12.

19: Essay II. 27, p. 142.

20: Essay III. 4, p. 384.

21: Rather sharp translations of _songe-creux_, as Montaigne calls himself (Florio, i. 19, p. 34). 'I am given rather to dreaming and sluggishness.'

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