, methinks
I see that those who have had the conduct of them employ
neither counsel nor deliberation about them, but for fashion
sake, and leave the best part of the enterprise to fortune;
and on the confidence they have in her aid, they still go
beyond the limits of all discourse. Casual rejoicings and
strange furies ensue among their deliberations."[17] etc.

Compare finally Florio's translation of the lines of Manilius cited by
Montaigne at the end of the 47th Essay of the First Book:

"'Tis best for ill-advis'd, wisdom may fail,[18]
Fortune proves not the cause that should prevail,
But here and there without respect doth sail:
A higher power forsooth us overdraws,
And mortal states guides with immortal laws."

It is to be remembered, indeed, that the idea expressed in Hamlet's
words to Horatio is partly anticipated in the rhymed speech of the
Player-King in the play-scene in Act III., which occurs in the First
Quarto:

"Our wills, our fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own."

Such a passage, reiterating a familiar commonplace, might seem at first
sight to tell against the view that Hamlet's later speech to Horatio is
an echo of Montaigne. But that view being found justified by the
evidence, and the idea in that passage being exactly coincident with
Montaigne's, while the above lines are only partially parallel in
meaning, we are forced to admit that Shakspere may have been influenced
by Montaigne even where a partial precedent might be found in his own or
other English work.

III. The phrase "discourse of reason," which is spoken by Hamlet in his
first soliloquy,[19] and which first appears in the Second Quarto, is
not used by Shakspere in any play before HAMLET; and he uses it again in
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA;[20] while "discourse of thought" appears in
OTHELLO;[21] and "discourse," in the sense of reasoning faculty, is used
in Hamlet's last soliloquy.[22] In English literature this use of the
word seems to be special in Shakspere's period,[23] and it has been
noted by an admirer as a finely Shaksperean expression. But the
expression "discourse of reason" occurs at least four times in
Montaigne's Essays, and in Florio's translation of them: in the
essay[24] THAT TO PHILOSOPHISE IS TO LEARN HOW TO DIE; again at the
close of the essay[25] _A demain les affaires_; again in the first
paragraph of the APOLOGY O