Chapter IV: Part 4

In the second scene of the fifth act, between Hamlet and Horatio (to the weak-minded Osrick the words spoken there are incomprehensible), the excellent qualities of Laertes are apparently judged. [69] This whole discussion is meant against Montaigne; and in the first quarto the chief points are wanting. Florio calls Montaigne's Essays 'Moral, Political, and Military Discourses.' [70] Osrick praises the qualities of the cavalier who has returned from France; and Hamlet replies that 'to divide him inventorily would dizzy the arithmetic of memory.'

The further, hitherto utterly unexplained, words ('and yet but yaw neither in respect of his quick sail') seem to have reference to the sonnet [71] by which the third book of the Essays is dedicated by Florio to Lady Grey. Montaigne is praised therein under the guise of Talbot's name, who, 'in peace or war, at sea or land, for princes' service, countries' good, sweetly sails before the wind.' In act ii. sc. 2, the north-north-west and the south wind were already alluded to, which are said to influence Hamlet's madness.

The translators and admirers of Montaigne are meant when Hamlet says that 'to make true diction of him, his semblable' must be 'his mirror; and, who else would trace him, his umbrage--nothing more.' That is, one must be Montaigne, or become his absolute admirer, 'his umbrage,' 'his semblable,' in order to do justice to him. The whole scene is full of allusions, easily explainable from the point of view we have indicated. So also, the reference to self-knowledge ('to know himself) --an art which Montaigne never learnt and the 'two weapons' with which he fights, are full of deep meaning.

It was probably no small number of men that took delight in the French essayist. No doubt, the jest of the gravedigger is directed against them, when he says that if the mad Hamlet does not recover his wits in England, it is no great matter there, because there the men are as mad as he.

Montaigne, especially in Essay III. (2) and III. (5), brings forward indecencies of the most shameless kind. We quite bear in mind what period it was when he wrote. Our manners and ideas are totally different from those of the sixteenth century. But what indignation must Shakspere have felt--he who had already created his noblest female characters, Helena and Olivia; and who had sung his paean of love, 'Romeo and Juliet'--when he read the ideas of the French nobleman about love and women! Nowhere, and on no occasion, does Shakspere in his dramas, in spite of phrases which to-day we qualify as obscene ones, lower the ideal of the womanly character--of the _ewig Weibliche_.

But let us read Montaigne's view: [72]--

'I find that love is nothing else than a thirst of enjoying a desired subject; nor that Venus is anything else but the pleasure of emptying one's seminary vessels, similar to the pleasure which Nature has given us in discharging other parts.'

Now, this significant quality also, of saying indecencies without shame, Hamlet has in common with Montaigne. No character in Shakspere's dramas uses such language as Hamlet; and in this case, let it be observed, it is not used between men, but towards the beloved one! We shall remark upon his relations with Ophelia later on.

The frivolous Montaigne speaks of love as one might do of a good dish to be enjoyed at every degree of age, according to taste and inclination. In Essay III.(4) we learn how, in his youth, 'standing in need of a vehement diversion for the sake of distraction, he made himself amorous by art and study.' Elsewhere he tells what great things he was able, as a young man, to achieve in this line. [73] He, therefore, does not agree with the sage who praises age because it frees us from voluptuousness. [74]

He, on the contrary, says:--'I shall never take kindly to impotence, whatever good it may do me.'

Montaigne, the old and young lover, is lashed in act v. sc. I, in disfigured verses of a song sung by the grave-digger, which dates about from the year 1557, and at Shakspere's time probably was very popular. In the original, where the image of death is meant to be represented, an old man looks back in repentance, and with great aversion, upon his youthful days when he found pleasure in love. The original verse stood thus:--

I lothe that I did love,
In youth that I thought swete,
As time requires for my behove,
Methinks they are not mete.

Until now, no sense could be made of the first verse which the gravedigger sings. It runs thus:--

In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought it was very sweet,
To contract, OH! the time, for, AH! my behove,
O, methought, there was nothing meet.

Let it be observed what stress is laid on the 'Oh!'--the proper time, and the 'Ah!'--the delight felt at the moment of enjoyment. The meaning of the old verse is changed in such a manner as to show that old Montaigne looks back with pleasure upon the time of his dissolute youth, whilst the author of the original text shrinks back from it.

The second verse [75] is a further persiflage of the old song. Its reading, too, is changed. It is said there that age, with his stealing steps, as clawed the lover in his clutch [76] and shipped him into the land as if he 'never had been such.'

By none has the relation between Ophelia and Hamlet been better felt and described than by Goethe. He calls her 'the good child in whose soul, secretly, a voice of voluptuousness resounds.' Hamlet who--driven rudderless by his impulse, his passion, his daimon, from one extreme to the other--drags everything that surrounds him into the abyss, also destroys the future of the woman that might truly make him happy. He disowns and rejects her whom Nature has formed for love. At a moment when fanatical thoughts have mastered his reason, he bids her go to a nunnery.

Once more we must point to the Essay in which Montaigne lays down his ideas about woman and love. French ladies, he says, study Boccaccio and such-like writers, in order to become skilful (_habiles_). 'But there is no word, no example, no single step in that matter which they do not know better than our books do. That is a knowledge bred in their very veins ... Had not this natural violence of their desires been somewhat bridled by the fear and a feeling of honour wherewith they have been provided, we would be dishonoured (_diffamez_).' Montaigne says he knows ladies who would rather lend their honour than their '_coach_.' [77]

'At last, when Ophelia has no longer any power over her own mind,' says Goethe, 'her heart being on her tongue, that tongue becomes a traitor against her.' [78]

In the scene of Ophelia's madness, we hear songs, thoughts, and phrases probably caught up by her from Hamlet. The ideal which man forms of woman, is the moral altitude on which she stands. Now, let the language be called to mind, which Hamlet, before the players' scene, uses towards his beloved!

Ophelia's words: 'Come, my _coach_ [79]' will be understood from the passage in Montaigne above quoted. The meaning of: 'Oh, how the _wheel_ becomes it!' has reference to a thought developed by Montaigne in Essay III. (11), [80] which we cannot render here, as it is opposed to every feeling of decency.

All commentators agree in thinking that the character of Laertes is in direct contrast to that of Hamlet. In the first quarto, the figure of Laertes is but rapidly indicated. Only that scene is worked out where he cries out against the priest who will not follow his sister to the grave:--

A ministering angel shall my sister be.
When thou liest howling.

In the second quarto only, we meet with the most characteristic speeches in which the strong-willed Laertes, [81] unmindful of any future world, calls for revenge with every drop of his indignant blood:--

To Hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devils!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation....
... Both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes ...
... to cut his throat i' the church.

That passage, too, is new, in which Ophelia's madness is explained as the consequence of blighted love:--

Nature is fine in love, and where 't is fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.

Her own reason, which succumbs to her love, is the precious token.

In the same way, those words are not in the first quarto, in which Laertes gives vent to the oppressed feelings of his heart, on hearing of the death of his sister:--

Nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will. When these (the tears) are gone,
The woman will be out.

All those beautiful precepts, also, which Laertes gives to his sister, are wanting in the quarto of 1603. [82]

Hamlet is the most powerful philosophical production, in the domain of poetry, written at the most critical epoch of mankind--the time of the Reformation. The greatest English genius recognised that it was everyone's duty to set a time out of joint to right. Shakspere showed to his noble friends a gifted and noble man whose life becomes a scourge for him and his surroundings, because he is not guided by manly courage and conscience, but by superstitious notions and formulas.

This colossal drama ranges from the thorny, far-stretching fields which man, only trusting in himself, has to work with the sweat of his brow, to that wonder-land of mystery--

Where these good tidings of great joy are heard. [83]

If the principles that are fought out in this drama, in tragic conflict, were to be described by catchwords, we might say: Reason stands against Dogma; Nature against Tradition; Self-Reliance against Submission. The great elementary forces are here at issue, which the Reformation had unchained, and with which we all have to reckon.

Shakspere's loving, noble heart beautifully does justice to the defeated Hamlet by making him be borne to his grave 'like a soldier,' with all the honouring 'rites of war.' The poet who knew the human heart so well, no doubt had seen many brave and gifted men who, after having been to Wittenberg's Halls of Intellectual Freedom, and become disciples of Humanism, once more were turned into slaves of dogmas which, under a new guise, not less restricted the free use of reason than the tenets of the old faith had done:--

Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
The capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused.

The life of the most gifted remains fruitless if, through fear of what may befall us in a future world, we cravenly shrink back from following the dictates of our reason and our conscience. From them we must take the mandate and commission for the task of our life; not from any mysterious messenger, nor from any ghost out of Purgatory. On the way to action, no 'goblin damned' must be allowed to cross our path with his assumed terrors. That which we feel to be right we must do, even if 'it be the very witching time of night, and hell breathes contagion into the world.'

Shakspere broke with all antiquated doctrines. He was one of the foremost Humanists in the fullest and noblest 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 asseveration:--
'Angels and ministers of grace,' 'All you host of Heaven,' 'God's
love,' 'God and mercy,' 'God's willing,' 'Help and mercy,' 'God's
love,' 'By St. Patrick,' 'God-a-mercy,' 'By my fay (_ma foi_),'
'S' blood (God's blood),' 'S' wounds,' 'God's bodykins,' 'By'r Lady,'
'Perdy (_Pardieu_),' 'By the rood (Cross),' 'Heavenly guards,' 'For
love and grace,' 'By the Lord,' 'Pray God,' &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 passages
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 pronunciation) 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.'

22: ''S wounds' (God's wounds)--a most characteristic expression;
used by Shakspere only in _Hamlet_, in this scene, and again
in act v. sc. 2.

23: As yet, Hamlet has but one ground of action--namely, the one
which, after the apparition of the Ghost, he set down in his tablets:
'that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain; at least, I am sure,
it may be so in Denmark.'

24: Act ii. sc. 2.

25: Essay I. 19.

26: II. 3.

27: Tacitus, _annal_. xiii. 56.

28: Essay I. 19.

29: Act. i. sc. 2.

30: Shakspere already uses this expression in _King John_ (1595) for
purposes of mirthful mockery. He makes the Bastard say to the
Archduke of Austria (act iii. sc. i):--'Hang a calf's skin on
those recreant limbs!'--a circumstance which convinces us that
Shakspere knew the Essays of Montaigne from the original at an
early time. We think it a fact important enough to point out that
Florio translates _peau d'un veau_ by 'oxe-hide' (fo. 34). We
cannot think of any other explanation than that the phrase in
question had become so popular through _King John_ as to render
it advisable for Florio to steer clear of this rock. Jonson, in his
_Volpone_ (act. i. sc. i), makes Mosca the parasite say in
regard to his master: 'Covered with hide, instead of skin.'

31: Florio's translation: 'If it be a _consummation_ of one's being'
(p. 627). Shakspere: 'a _consummation_ devoutly to be wished.' This
word is only once used by Shakspere in such a sense. It occurs in
another sense in _King Lear_ (iv. 6) and _Cymbeline_ (iv. 2), but
nowhere else in his works.

32: Monologue of the first quarto:--

'To be, or not to be, I there's the point,
To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all:
No, to sleepe, to dreame, I, mary there it goes,
For in that dreame of death, when wee awake,
And borne before an everlasting judge,
From whence no passenger ever returned,
The undiscovered country, at whose sight
The happy smile, and the accursed damned.
But for this, the joyful hope of this,
Whol'd beare the scornes of flattery of the world,
Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore?
The widow being oppress'd, the orphan wronged,
The taste of hunger, or a tyrants raigne,
And thousand more calamities besides,
To grunte and sweate under the weary life,
When that he may his full quietus make,
With a bare bodkin, who would this indure,
But for a hope of something after death?
Which pushes the brain and doth connfound the sence,
Which makes us rather beare those evilles we have,
Than flie to others that we know not of.
I that, O this conscience makes cowardes of us all.
Lady in thy orizons, be all my sinnes remembered.

33: On closely examining the copy of Montaigne's Essays in the British
Museum, which bears Shakspere's autograph on the title-page, we
found--long after our treatise had been completed--that on the
fly-leaf at the end of the volume is written: _Mors incrta_,
(Written somewhat indistinctly, meaning probably _incerta_.
It might also be an abbreviation of 'incertam horam' [_incr.
ho_.], as contained in the Latin verse on p. 626:--

Incertam frustra, mortales, funeris horam
Quaeritis, et qua sit mors aditura via.)

626, 627. These two numbers, apparently, refer to the corresponding
pages of Montaigne's work, which contain nothing but thoughts
about the uncertainty of the hour of death and the hereafter. On
p. 627 there is the speech of Sokrates, which in Florio's
translation, as shown above, bears such striking resemblance to
Hamlet's monologue. There are other Latin sentences on the same
fly-leaf, pronounced by Sir Frederic Madden to be written by a
later pen than Shakspere's. To us, at any rate, the above words
and numbers appear to proceed from a different hand than the other
sentences. Judgments thereon from persons well versed in the
writings of that time would be of great interest.

34: P. 103.

35: I. 19.

36: Act iii. sc. 2.

37: III. 12 (Florio, 626).

38: We do not doubt that this is a sly thrust at Florio, who, in the
preface to his translation, calls himself 'Montaigne's Vulcan,' who
hatches out Minerva from that 'Jupiter's bigge brain'.

39: Florio, 476.

40: Florio, 592: 'Thus goe the world, and so goe men.'

41: III. 1.

42: II. 27.

43: Clarendon: 'Circumstance of thought' means here the details
over which thought ranges, and from which its conclusions are
formed.

44: '_Index_,' in our opinion, does not signify here either the
title, or prologue, or the indication of the contents of a book,
but is an allusion to the Index of the Holy See and its thunders.

45: Montaigne, III. 10; Florio, 604: 'Custome is a second nature,
and no less powerfull.... To conclude, I am ready to finish this
man, not to make another. By longe custome this forme is changed
into substance, Fortune into Nature.'

46: III. 1.

47: This is wanting in the first quarto, like the whole conclusion
of this scene.

48: This whole scene between Horatio and Hamlet consists of the
following four lines in the old quarto:--

_Hamlet_. Beleeuve me, it greeuves me much, Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myselfe:
For by myselfe methinkes I feel his greefe,
Though there's a difference in each other's way.

Does this not look like a draught destined to be the kernel of a
scene? The end of the scene where Osrick comes in, is also much
shorter in the older play.

49: Florio, 330: 'We amend ourselves by privation of reason and
by her drooping.' Hamlet's conduct is only to be explained by his
quietly sitting down until his reason should droop.--II. 12.

50: Florio, 608.

51: Florio, 609.

52: This whole scene is nearly new (in the first quarto it is a mere
sketch). There are in it several direct allusions to Montaigne's
book, on which we shall touch later on.

53: Here the dramatist, in order to paint a trait of vanity in Hamlet's
character, uses a device. He makes the latter say that, since Laertes
went into France, he (Hamlet) has been in continual practice. Yet we
know (act ii. sc. 2) that he had given up his accustomed exercise.
In that scene the poet wishes to describe Hamlet's melancholy; in
the other, his vanity. He chooses the colours which are apt to
produce quickest impressions among the audience.

54: Act v. sc. 2.

55: See St. Matthew x.29.

56: I. 19.

57: III. 9.

58: II. 12.

59: The Queen describes Hamlet as 'fat, and scant of breath.' Here
is Montaigne's description of himself (Essai II. 27):--'J'ay,
au demourant, la taille forte et ramassee; le visage non pas
gras, mais plein, la complexion entre le jovial et le melancholique,
moyennement sanguine et chaude.' Florio's translation, p. 372:--'As
for me, I am of a strong and well compact stature, my face is not
fat, but full, my complexion betweene joviall and melancholy,
indifferently sanguine and hote--('_not splenetive and rash_').

60: III. 13

61: III. 9.

62: Act iii. sc. 1.

63: We shall now oftener touch upon satirical passages uttered by
the character himself against whom they are directed. The true
dramatist gives the public no time to think over an incident in full
leisure. Every means--as we have already shown before--is welcome to
him, which aids in rapidly bringing out the telling traits of his
figures. No surprise need therefore be felt that Hamlet, though
representing Montaigne, sneers at, and morally flagellates, himself.

64: Act iii. sc. 2.

65: II. 1.

66: Act iv. sc. 7.

67: I. 9, 25; II. 10, &c. If an attentive reader will take the
trouble to closely examine that part of the scene in Shakspere's
_Tempest_ (act ii. sc. 1) wherein the passage occurs, which he
borrowed from Essay I. 30--'On Cannibals'--and compare it with
this most 'strange Essay,' he will clearly convince himself that
Shakspere can only have made use of it as a satire on Montaigne's
defective memory, which entangles this author in the most ludicrous
contradictions. Gonzala declares that, if he were king of the isle
on which he and his companion were wrecked, he would found a
commonwealth as described in the above passage. He concludes this
description, saying he would have 'no sovereignty.'

Sebastian justly remarks: 'Yet he would be king on't;' and
Antonio continues by saying: 'The latter end of his commonwealth
forgets the beginning.'

Even such is the contradiction in Montaigne's fanciful Essay 'On
Cannibals,' where, towards the end, he speaks of a captain who
holds authority over these savages, not only in war, but also in
peace, 'that when he went to visit the village of his dependence,
they cut him paths through the thick of their woods, through which
he might pass at ease.' The beginning of this Essay described the
commonwealth of these cannibals as tolerating no politic superiority,
no use of service, no occupation, &c. 'What short memory!
much wanting tablets!'

In the above-mentioned scene of the _Tempest_ Sebastian makes
the remark: 'No marrying 'mong his subjects,' which evidently is
also meant as a hit against Montaigne's anti-matrimonial ideas,
which we dwelt upon in the scene between Hamlet and Ophelia.

68: Jonson, long afterwards, had not forgotten this hit against
Montaigne. In _Epicoene_ (1609) he makes Cleremont say:--'When
we come to have grey heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk
members ... then we'll pray and fast.'

69: This whole passage of act v. sc. 2 (106-138) is again
only to be found in the quarto of 1604, not in the folio edition of
1623. In later years the poet may have struck it out, as being only
comprehensible to a smaller circle of his friends. In the same way
that passage of act iv. sc. 4, which only contains thoughts
of Montaigne, was not received into the folio of 1623.

70: This is their title in Florio's translation: _Morall, Politike,
Millitarie Discourses of Lo. Michaell de Montaigne, Knight of the
noble order of Saint Michaell, and one of the Gentlemen in ordinary
of the French King Henry III. his Chamber_.

71: The sonnet runs thus:--

_To the Right Honourable Ladie Elizabeth Grey_. (She was a
daughter of Count Shrewsbury, a Talbot.)
Of honorable TALBOT honored farre,
The forecast and the fortune, by his WORD
_Montaigne_ here descrives; what by his Sword,
What by his wit; this, as the guiding starre;
That, as th' Aetolian blast, in peace or warre,
At sea, or land, as cause did use afforde,
_Avant le vent_, to tacke his sails aboarde,
So as his course no orethwart crosse might barre,
But he would sweetly sail _before the wind_;
For Princes service, Countries good, his fame.
Heire-Daughter of that prudent, constant kinde,
Joyning thereto of GREY as great a name, Of
both chief glories shrining in your minde,
Honour him that your Honor doth proclaime.'

We have already learned from the preface of the first book of the
_Essais_ how Florio was 'sea-tosst, weather-beaten,' 'ship-wrackt,'
'almost drowned,' when exerting himself to capture the
whale--Montaigne--and drag him through 'the rocke-rough Ocean'
with the assistance of his colleague Diodati, whom he compares to
'a guide-fish.' Hamlet calls Polonius a fish-monger. The latter
fools Hamlet by pretending that yonder cloud is in the shape of a
whale, which just before appeared to him like the back of a weasel.
Every word almost in this wonderful drama is a well-directed hit.

72: Essay III. 5.

73: _Ibid_. 13.

74: _Ibid_. 2.

75: The quarto of 1623 has only the third verse.

76: The old song has the word 'crouch.'

77: Essay III. 5, p. 460. Florio, p. 529.

78: We think it is worth while to quote the following verse Montaigne
(III. 5) mentions when speaking of that nature of woman, which
he thinks suggests to her every possible act of libidinousness:--

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 cock 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 circumstances and severer destiny,
and altogether a somewhat more passionate 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 PARNASSUS.'

CHARACTERISTIC OF BEN JONSON.

BEN JONSON'S HOSTILE ATTITUDE TOWARDS SHAKSPERE.

DRAMATIC SKIRMISH BETWEEN BEN JONSON AND SHAKSPERE.

BEN JONSON'S 'POETASTER.'

DEKKER'S 'SATIROMASTIX.'

We now proceed to an inquiry into the 'controversy between Jonson and Dekker,' which has been repeatedly mentioned before.

Shakspere, we shall find, was implicated in it in a very large degree. Instead of indicating, however, that controversy by the designation under which it is known in literature, it would be more correct to put SHAKSPERE'S name in the place of that of Dekker. Many a reader who perhaps does not fully trust yet our bold assertion that Hamlet is a counterfeit of Montaigne's individuality, will now, we hope, be convinced by vouchers drawn from dramas published in 1604 and 1605, and which are in the closest connection with that controversy. We intend partly making a thorough examination of, partly consulting in a cursory manner, the following pieces:--

1. 'Poetaster' (1601), by Ben Jonson. 2. 'Satiromastix' (1602), by Thomas Dekker. 3. 'Malcontent' (1604), by John Marston. 4. 'Volpone' (1605), by Ben Jonson. 5. 'Eastward Hoe' (1605), by Ben Jonson, Chapman, and Marston.

In 'The Poetaster' Ben Jonson makes his chief attack upon Dekker and Shakspere. In 'Satiromastix,' Dekker defends himself against that attack. In doing so, he sides with Shakspere; and we thereby gain an insight into the noble conduct of the latter. Between Jonson and Shakspere there had already been dramatic skirmishes during several years before the appearance of 'The Poetaster.' We shall only be able to touch rapidly upon their meaning, considering that we confine ourselves, in the main, to a statement of that which concerns 'Hamlet.'

After Jonson, in his 'Poetaster,' had exceeded all bounds of decent behaviour with most intolerable arrogance, Shakspere seems to have become weary of these malicious personal onslaughts; all the more so because they were apparently put into the mouth of innocent children. So he wrote his 'Hamlet,' showing up, therein, the loose and perplexing ideas of his chief antagonist, who belonged to the party of Florio-Montaigne.

Hamlet, as we shall prove beyond the possibility of cavil, is the hitherto unexplained 'purge' in 'The Return from Parnassus,' which 'our fellow Shakspere' administered to Ben Jonson in return for the 'pill' destined for himself in 'The Poetaster.' After the publication of 'Hamlet,' Jonson wrote his 'Volpone' as a counterblast to this drama. Now 'Volpone,' and the Preface in which the author dedicates it to the two Universities, furnish us with the evidence that our theory must be a fact; for Jonson therein defended both the party of Florio-Montaigne and himself.

Moreover, we shall adduce a series of proofs from 'The Malcontent' and from 'Eastward Hoe.'

A drama, written by an unknown author, and printed in 1606, offers us a valuable material wherewith to make it clear that, at that time, a very bitter feud must have raged between Jonson and Shakspere; for it is scarcely to be believed that it would have been brought on the stage had a larger public not been deeply interested in the controversy. 'The Return from Parnassus, or the Scourge of Simony,' [1] is the title of the play, mentioned several times before, in which this controversy is referred to in clear words. Philomusus and Studioso, two poor scholars who in vain had sought to pursue their calling as medical men, resolve upon going to the more profitable stage. They are to be prepared for it by two of the most famous actors from the Globe Theatre (Shakspere's company), Burbage and Kemp. Whilst these are waiting for their new pupils, [2] they converse about the capabilities of the students for the histrionic art. Kemp, in words which show that the author must have had great knowledge of the stage, condemns their ways and manners, mocking the silly kind of acting which he had once seen in a performance of the students at Cambridge. Burbage thinks they might amend their faults in course of time, and that, at least, advantage could be taken of them in so far as to make them write a part now and then; which certainly they could do. To this Kemp replies:--

'Few of the University pen plaies well; they smell too much of that writer _Ovid_ and that writer _Metamorphosis_, and talk too much of _Proserpina_ and _Jupiter_. Why, here's our fellow _Shakespeare_ puts them all down--I, and _Ben Jonson_ too. O that _Ben Jonson_ is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill; [3] but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him spurge that made him bewray his credit.'

Burbage answers:--'It's a shrewd fellow indeed.'

For the better understanding of this most interesting controversy, the centre of which Hamlet forms, it is necessary that we should give a characteristic of Shakspere's adversary, Ben Jonson, whose individuality and mode of action are too little known among the general reading public.

Ben Jonson, born in 1573, in the neighbourhood of Westminster, was the posthumous child of a Scot who had occupied a modest position at the Court of Henry VIII., but who, under Queen Mary, had to suffer long imprisonment, probably on account of his religious opinions. His estates were confiscated by the Crown. After having obtained his liberation, he became a priest of the Reformed Church of England. Two years after his death, his widow, the mother of Ben, again married: this time her husband was a master bricklayer. The education of the boy from the first marriage, who at an early age showed talent for learning, was not neglected. It is assumed that friends of his father, seeing Ben's ability, rendered it possible for him to enter Westminster School, and afterwards to study at the University of Cambridge. In his seventeenth or eighteenth year, probably from a want of means, he had to give up the career of learning, in order to follow the simple calling of his stepfather. It may be easily understood that Ben was little pleased with the use of the trowel; he fled to the Netherlands, became a soldier, and took part in a campaign. After a year, the youthful adventurer, then only nineteen years old, came back to London. He talks of a heroic deed; but the truthfulness of his account may well be doubted. He pretends having killed an enemy, in the face of both camps, and come back to the ranks, laden with his spoils.

After his return to London, Jonson first tried to earn his livelihood as an actor. His figure [4] and his scorbutic face were, however, sad hindrances to his success. Soon he gave up the histrionic attempts and began to write additions to existing plays, at the order of a theatrical speculator, of the name of Philip Henslowe. The only further detail we have of Jonson's doings, down to 1598, [5] is, that he fell out with one of his colleagues, an actor (Jonson's quarrelsome disposition as regards his comrades commenced very early), and that finally he killed his antagonist. We then find him in prison where a Catholic priest induced him to become a convert to the Roman Church which, after the lapse of about twelve years, he again left, returning to the Established Protestant Church of England. Jonson himself afterwards said once that 'he was for any religion, as being versed in both.' [6] It is, therefore, not to be assumed that he once more changed from conviction. His reconversion appears rather to have been a prudential act on his part, in order to conform to the religious views of the pedantic James I., and thus to obtain access at Court, which aim he indeed afterwards reached; whereas he had not been able to obtain that favour under Elizabeth. [7]

It is not known by what, or by whom, Ben Jonson was saved from the near prospect of the gallows. In 1598 his name is mentioned as one of the better-known writers of comedies, by Francis Meres, in his 'Palladis Tamia.' His first successful comedy was, 'Every Man in his Humour.' Fama says that the manuscript which the author had sent in to the Lord Chamberlain's Company, was on the point of being rejected when Shakspere requested to have the play given to him, read it, and caused its being acted on the stage. This anecdote belongs, however, to the class of traditional tales of that age, whose value for fixing facts is a most doubtful one. It is more certain that Ben, at the age of twenty, took a wife; which contributed very little to the lessening of his chronic poverty with which he constantly had to struggle. It does not appear that the union was a very happy one; for he relates that he once left his wife for five years.

A diary written by an unknown barrister informs us, February 12, 1602: 'Ben Jonson, the poet, nowe lives upon one Townesend and scornes the world.' [8] In the society of gallants and lords, the young poet felt himself most at home. All kinds of mendicant epistles, sonnets, dedications, petitions, and so forth, which he addressed to high personages, and which have been preserved, convince us that Jonson neglected nothing that could give an opportunity to the generosity of liberal noblemen to prove themselves patrons of art in regard to him. He boasts on the stage of being more in the enjoyment of the favour of the great ones than any of his literary contemporaries. [9] Modesty was certainly not a mitigating trait in the character of hot-tempered Jonson, whose wrath was easily roused.

Convinced of the power of his own genius, he most eagerly wanted to see the value of his work acknowledged. Not satisfied with the slow judgment his contemporaries might come to, or the niggardly reward they might confer; nor content with the prospects of a laurel wreath which grateful Posterity lays on the marble heads of departed eminent men, this pretentious disciple of the Muse importunately claimed his full recompense during his own life. For the applause of the great mass, the dramatist, after all, has to contend. Jonson strove hard for it; but in vain. A more towering genius was the favourite of the age. Ben, however, laid the flattering unction to his soul that he was above Shakspere, [10] even as above all other contemporary authors; and he left nothing unattempted to gain the favour of the great public. All his endeavours remained fruitless. On every occasion he freely displays the rancour he felt at his ill-success; for he certainly was not master of his temper. In poems, epistles, and epigrams, as well as in his dramas, and in the dedications, prologues, and epilogues attached thereto, he shows his anger against the 'so-called stage poets.' We shall prove that his fullest indignation is mainly directed against one--the very greatest: need we name him?

Jonson, resolved upon making the most of his Muse in a remunerative sense, well knew how to obtain the patronage of the highest persons of the country; and his ambition seems to have found satisfaction when, afterwards, a call was made upon him, on the part of the Court, to compose 'Masques' for Twelfth-Night and similar extraordinary occasions. He produced a theatrical piece in consonance with the barbaric taste prevailing in Whitehall, which gave plenty to do to the machinists, the decorators, and the play-dresser of the stage. With such a division of labour in the domain of art, it is not easy, to-day, to decide to whom the greater merit belongs, among those concerned, of having afforded entertainment to the courtiers. Dramatic or poetical value is wanting in those productions of Jonson.

From his poems, as well as from the 'Conversations with Drummond,' we know that among the patronesses of Jonson there were Lucie Countess of Bedford and Elizabeth Countess of Rutland--two ladies to whom Florio dedicated a translation of Montaigne. Lady Rutland's marriage was a most unhappy one. In the literary intercourse with prominent men of her time she appears to have sought consolation and distraction.

Jonson's relations with this lady must have been rather friendly ones, for 'Ben one day being at table with my Lady Rutland, her husband coming in, accused her that she keept table to poets, of which she wrott a letter to him (Jonson), which he answered. My lord intercepted the letter, but never chalenged him.' [11]

From the same source which makes this statement we take the following trait in Jonson's character, which is as little calculated as his passionate quarrelsomeness to endear him to us. Sir Thomas Overbury had become enamoured of unhappy Lady Rutland. Jonson was asked by this nobleman, who at the same time was a poet, to read to the adored one a lyrical effusion of his; evidently for the purpose of fomenting her inclinations towards the friend who was languishing for her. Ben Jonson relates that he fulfilled Overbury's wish 'with excellent grace,' at the same time praising the author. Next morning he fell out with Overbury, who would have him to make an unlawful proposal to Lady Rutland.

But how, we may ask, was it possible that Jonson's noble friend could at all think of trying to use him as a go-between in this shameful manner? Are we not reminded here of the position of thirsty Toby Belch towards the simple Aguecheek, if not even of honest [12] Iago in his dealings with the liberal Rodrigo? Neither in Olivia's uncle, nor in Othello's Ancient is it reckoned a merit to have omitted doing pimp service to friends. Their policy of taking advantage of amorous inclinations, although they did not even try to promote them by the reading of poetical productions, remains not the less contemptible.

As to Jonson's passion for the cup that does more than cheer, neither he himself conceals it, nor is evidence to the same effect wanting on the part of his contemporaries. Drayton says that he was in the habit of 'wearing a loose coachman's coat, frequenting the Mermaid Tavern, where he drank seas of Canary; then reeling home to bed, and, after a profuse perspiration, arising to his dramatic studies.' [13]

At a certain time, Jonson accompanied a son of Sir Walter Raleigh as tutor during a voyage to France. The young hopeful pupil, 'being knavishly inclined,' and not less quick in the execution of practical jokes than in spying out human weaknesses, had no difficulty in understanding his tutor's bent, and succeeded in making Jonson 'dead drunk.' He then 'laid him on a carr, which he made to be drawen by pioners through the streets, at every corner showing his governour stretched out, and telling them, that was a more lively image of the Crucifix than any they had.' The mother of young Raleigh greatly relished this sport. It reminded her of similar tricks her husband had been addicted to in his boyish days, 'though the father abhorred it.'

With habits of the kind described, Jonson had a hard but fruitless struggle against oppressing poverty and downright misery during his whole life. When age was approaching, he addressed himself to his highborn patrons with petitions in well-set style. His needy condition was, however, little bettered, even when Charles I., in 1630, conferred upon him, seven years before his death, an annual pension of 100 pounds, with a terse of Spanish wine yearly out of his Majesty's store at Whitehall.

A letter of Sir Thomas Hawkins describes one of the last circumstances of Jonson's life. At 'a solemn supper given by the poet, when good company, excellent cheer, choice wine, and jovial welcome had opened his heart and loosened his tongue, he began to raise himself at the expense of others.'

Wine, joviality, good company, and bitter satire--these were the elements of Ben Jonson's happiness.

'O rare Ben Jonson!' Sir John Young, [14] who, walking through Westminster Abbey, saw the bare stone on the poet's grave, gave one of the workmen eighteenpence to cut the words in question, and posterity is still in doubt whether the word 'rare' was meant for the valuable qualities of the poet or for those of the boon-companion.

We will give a short abstract of Jonson's character from the notes of a contemporary whose guest he had been during fully a month in 1619. One might doubt the sincerity of this judgment if Sir William Drummond, his liberal host, had made it public for the purpose of harming Jonson. There was, however, no such intention, for it remained in manuscript for fully two hundred years.

Only then, a copy of this incisive characteristic came before the world at large. The Scottish nobleman and poet had written it down, together with many utterances of Jonson, after his guest who most freely and severely criticised his contemporaries had left. The perspicacity of Drummond, and the truthful rendering of his impressions, are fully confirmed by Jonson's manner of life and the contents of his literary productions. [15] Drummond concludes his notes thus:--

'He' (Jonson) 'is a great lover and praiser of himself; a contemner and scorner of others; given rather to loose a friend than a jest; jealous of every word and action of those about him (especially after drink, which is one of the elements in which he liveth): a dissembler of ill parts which reigne in him; a bragger of some good that he wanteth; thinking nothing well but what either himself or some of his friends and countrymen have said or done. He is passionately kind and angry; careless either to gain or keep; vindicative, but, if he be well answered, at himself. For any religion, as being versed in both; interpreteth best sayings and deeds often to the worst. Oppressed with fantasie, which has ever mastered his reason: a general disease in many poets.'

It will easily be understood that between two natures of so opposite a bent as that of the quarrelsome Jonson and 'gentle Shakspere,' friendship for any length of time could scarcely be possible. [16]

The creations of the dramatist obtain their real value by the poet's own character. He who breathes a soul into so many figures destined for action must himself be gifted with a greatness of soul that encompasses a world. In the dramatic art, such actions only charm which are evolved out of clearly defined passions; and such characters only awake interest which bear human features strongly marked. If, however, we cast a glance at the dramatic productions of Ben Jonson, we in vain look among the many figures that crowd his stage for one which could inspire us with sympathy. Time has pronounced its verdict against his creations: they are lying in the archive of mere curiosities. Even the inquirer feels ill at ease when going for them to their hiding-place. Jonson's characters do not speak with the ever unmistakeable and touching voice of human passions. In his comedies he produces the strangest whims, caprices, and crotchets, by which he probably points to definite persons. The clue to these often malignant dialectics is very difficult to find.

The action of his plays--if incidental quarrels, full of sneering allusions, are left aside--is generally of such diminutive proportions that one may well ask, after the perusal of some of his dramas, whether they contain any action at all. No doubt the satirist, too, has his legitimate place in the dramatic art; but he must know how to hit the weaknesses of human nature in certain striking types. Jonson, however, is far from being able to lay a claim to such dramaturgic merit. At 'haphazard he took certain individualities from the idly gossiping crowd that congregated in the central nave of St. Paul's Church, and put them on the stage. Whoever had been strutting about there to-day in his silken stockings, proudly displaying the nodding feathers in his hat, his rich waist-coat and mantle, and boasting a little too loud before some other gallant of his love adventures, ran great danger--like all those whose demeanour in St. Paul's gave rise to backbiting gossip--of being pourtrayed in the 'Rose,' in the 'Curtain,' or in the theatres of the 'little eyases,' in such a manner that people were able, in the streets, to point them out with their fingers.

Like so many other novelties, this kind of comedy, too, may for a while have found its admirers. Soon, however, this degradation of the Muse brought up such a storm that Jonson had to take refuge in another domain of the dramatic art (1601). He himself confesses:--

And since the Comic Muse
Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try
If Tragedy have a more kind aspect. [17]

But he is nothing if not satirical. The persons that are to enliven his tragedies are not filled with the true breath of life. They are mere phantoms or puppets of schoolcraft, laboriously put together by a learning drawn from old folios. In his tragedies, 'Sejanus' and 'Cataline,' he seeks to describe Romans whose whole bearing was to be in pedantically close harmony with the time in which the dramatic action occurs. Only a citizen from a certain period of ancient Rome would be able to decide whether this difficult but thankless problem had been solved. These cold academic treatises--for such we must, practically, take them to be--were not relished by the public. There is no vestige of human passion in the bookish heroes thus put on the stage. For their sorrows the audience has no feeling of fear or anguish and no tear of compassion.

Jonson, indignant at the small estimate in which his arduously composed works were received, ill-humoured by their want of success, looked enviously upon Shakspere, who had not been academically schooled; who audaciously overthrew the customs of the antique drama; who made his own rules, or rather, who made himself a rule to others; who created metrics that were peculiarly his; who chose themes hitherto considered non-permissible, and unusual with Greeks and Romans; who flung the 'three unities' to the winds; and who, nevertheless, had an unheard-of success!

This favourite of the public, Jonson seems to have looked upon as the main obstacle barring the way to his own genius. Against this towering rival, Jonson directed a hail of satirical arrows. Only take, for instance, the prologue to 'Every Man in his Humour.' [18] There, Jonson, with the most arrogant conceit, tries to make short work of various dramas of Shakspere's--for instance, of his historical plays, in which he dared--

... with three rusty swords,
And help of some few foot and half-foot words,
Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars,
And in the tyring-house bring wounds to scars.

In 'The Poetaster,' which in 1601 was acted by the children of the Queen's Chapel, Jonson made an attack upon three poets. We hope to be able to prove that the one most bitterly abused, and who is bidden to swallow the 'pill,' is no other than Shakspere, whilst the two remaining ones are John Marston and Thomas Dekker. From the 'Apologetical Dialogue' which Jonson wrote after 'The Poetaster' had already passed over the stage, we see that this satire had excited the greatest indignation and sensation in the dramatic world. It was a new manner of falling out with a colleague before the public. The conceited presumption of the author, who in the play itself assumes the part of Horace, seriously proclaiming himself as the poet of poets, as the worthiest of the worthy, is not less enormous and repulsive than the way in which he proceeds against his rivals.

Quite innocently, Jonson asks in that dialogue (which was spoken on the stage after 'The Poetaster' had given rise to a general squabble), how it came about that such a hubbub was made of that play, seeing that it was free from insults, only containing 'some salt' but 'neither tooth, nor gall,' whilst his antagonists, after all, had been the cause of whatever remarks he himself had made:--

... But sure I am, three years
They did provoke me with their petulant styles,
On every stage. And I at last, unwilling,
But weary, I confess, of so much trouble,
Thought I would try if shame could win upon 'em.