in the fashion of the fine writers of modern
Italy, ... now seriously studies Plutarch and Sallust, and
seeks of them those great teachings on human life with which
the chapters of Michael Montaigne are filled. Is it not
surprising to see Julius Caesar and Coriolanus suddenly taken
up by the man who has just (tout a l'heure) been describing
in thirty-six stanzas, like Marini, the doves of the car of
Venus? And does not one see that he comes fresh from the
reading of Montaigne, who never ceased to translate,
comment, and recommend the ancients ...? The dates of
Shakspere's CORIOLANUS, CLEOPATRA, and JULIUS CAESAR are
incontestable. These dramas follow on from 1606 to 1608,
with a rapidity which proves the fecund heat of an
imagination still moved."

All this must be revised in the light of a more correct chronology.
Shakspere's JULIUS CAESAR dates, not from 1604 but from 1600 or 1601,
being referred to in Weever's MIRROR OF MARTYRS, published in 1601, to
say nothing of the reference in the third Act of HAMLET itself, where
Polonius speaks of such a play. And, even if it had been written in
1604, it would still be a straining of the evidence to ascribe its
production, with that of CORIOLANUS and ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, to the
influence of Montaigne, when every one of these themes was sufficiently
obtruded on the Elizabethan theatre by North's translation of Amyot's
PLUTARCH. Any one who will compare CORIOLANUS with the translation in
North will see that Shakspere has followed the text down to the most
minute and supererogatory details, even to the making of blunders by
putting the biographer's remarks in the mouths of the characters. The
comparison throws a flood of light on Shakspere's mode of procedure; but
it tells us nothing of his perusal of Montaigne. Rather it suggests a
return from the method of the revised HAMLET, with its play of reverie,
to the more strictly dramatic method of the chronicle histories, though
with a new energy and concision of presentment. The real clue to
Montaigne's influence on Shakspere beyond HAMLET, as we have seen, lies
not in the Roman plays, but in MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

There is a misconception involved, again, in M. Chasles' picture of an
abrupt transition from Shakspere's fantastic youthful method to that of
HAMLET and the Roman plays. He overlooks the intermediate stages
represented by such plays as ROMEO AND JULIET, HENRY IV., KING JOHN, the
MERCHANT OF V