remarked that "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"; and
further threw out the germ of a thesis which has since been disastrously
developed, to the effect that "the Prince of Denmark is very nearly a
Montaigne, lifted to a higher eminence, and agitated by more striking
circumstances and a severer destiny, and altogether a somewhat more
passionate structure of man."[3] In 1846, again, Philarete Chasles, an
acute and original critic, citing the passage in the TEMPEST, went on to
declare that "once on the track of the studies and tastes of Shakspere,
we find Montaigne at every corner, in HAMLET, in OTHELLO, in CORIOLANUS.
Even the composite style of Shakspere, so animated, so vivid, so new, so
incisive, so coloured, so hardy, offers a multitude of striking
analogies to the admirable and free manner of Montaigne."[4] The
suggestion as to the "To be or not to be" soliloquy has been taken up by
some critics, but rejected by others; and the propositions of M.
Chasles, so far as I am aware, have never been supported by evidence.
Nevertheless, the general fact of a frequent reproduction or
manipulation of Montaigne's ideas in some of Shakspere's later plays
has, I think, since been established.

Twelve years ago I incidentally cited, in an essay on the composition of
HAMLET, some dozen of the Essays of Montaigne from which Shakspere had
apparently received suggestions, and instanced one or two cases in which
actual peculiarities of phrase in Florio's translation of the Essays are
adopted by him, in addition to a peculiar coincidence which has been
pointed out by Mr. Jacob Feis in his work entitled SHAKSPERE AND
MONTAIGNE; and since then the late Mr. Henry Morley, in his edition of
the Florio translation, has pointed to a still more remarkable
coincidence of phrase, in a passage of HAMLET which I had traced to
Montaigne without noticing the decisive verbal agreement in question.
Yet so far as I have seen, the matter has passed for little more than a
literary curiosity, arousing no new ideas as to Shakspere's mental
development. The notable suggestion of Chasles on that head has been
ignored more completely than the theory of Mr. Feis, which in comparison
is merely fantastic. Either, then, there is an unwillingness in England
to conceive of S