spheres in the MERCHANT OF
VENICE[77] recalls the passage on the subject in Montaigne's essay of
CUSTOM;[78] but then the original source is Cicero, IN SOMNIUM
SCIPIONIS, which had been translated into English in 1577. (2)
Falstaff's rhapsody on the virtues of sherris[79] recalls a passage in
the essay OF DRUNKENNESS,[80] but then Montaigne avows that what he says
is the common doctrine of wine-drinkers. (3) Montaigne cites[81] the old
saying of Petronius, that "all the world's a stage," which occurs in AS
YOU LIKE IT; but the phrase itself, being preserved by John of
Salisbury, would be current in England. It is, indeed, said to have been
the motto of the Globe Theatre. Thus, while we are the more strongly
convinced of a Montaigne influence beginning with HAMLET, we are bound
to concede the doubtfulness of any apparent influence before the Second
Quarto. At most we may say that both of Hamlet's soliloquies which touch
on suicide evidently owe something to the discussions set up by
Montaigne's essays.[82]

XVII. In the case of the Duke's exhortation to Claudio in MEASURE FOR
MEASURE, on the contrary, the whole speech may be said to be a synthesis
of favourite propositions of Montaigne. The thought in itself, of
course, is not new or out-of-the-way; it is nearly all to be found
suggested in the Latin classics; but in the light of what is certain for
us as to Shakspere's study of Montaigne, and of the whole cast of the
expression, it is difficult to doubt that Montaigne is for Shakspere the
source. Let us take a number of passages from Florio's translation of
the Nineteenth Essay, to begin with:

"The end of our career is death: it is the necessary object
of our aim; if it affright us, how is it possible we should
step one foot further without an ague?"

"What hath an aged man left him of his youth's vigour, and
of his fore past life?... When youth fails in us, we feel,
nay we perceive, no shaking or transchange at all in
ourselves: which is essence and verity is a harder death
than that of a languishing and irksome life, or that of age.
Forasmuch as the leap from an ill being into a not being is
not so dangerous or steepy as it is from a delightful and
flourishing being into a painful and sorrowful condition. A
weak bending and faint stopping body hath less strength to
bear and undergo a heavy burden: So hath our soul."

"Our religion hath no surer human foundation than the
contempt