Part 13 (2/2)

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

Florio translates (514):--

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

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

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

80: Florio, 617.

81: Act iv. sc. 5.

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

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

Montaigne, II. 12; Florio, 319:

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

83: Goethe's _Faust_.

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

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

F. Stedefeld, Kreisgerichtsrath_. Berlin, 1871.'

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

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

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

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

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

V.

THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN BEN JONSON AND DEKKER.

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

CHARACTERISTIC OF BEN JONSON.

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

DRAMATIC SKIRMISH BETWEEN BEN JONSON AND SHAKSPERE.

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