hakspere as owing much to foreign influences, or as a
case of intelligible mental growth, or else the whole critical problem
which Shakspere represents--and he may be regarded as the greatest of
critical problems--comes within the general disregard for serious
criticism, noticeable among us of late years. And the work of Mr. Feis,
unfortunately, is as a whole so extravagant that it could hardly fail to
bring a special suspicion on every form of the theory of an intellectual
tie between Shakspere and Montaigne. Not only does he undertake to show
in dead earnest what Sterling had vaguely suggested as conceivable, that
Shakspere meant Hamlet to represent Montaigne, but he strenuously argues
that the poet framed the play in order to discredit Montaigne's
opinions--a thesis which almost makes the Bacon theory specious by
comparison. Naturally it has made no converts, even in Germany, where,
as it happens, it had been anticipated.

In France, however, the neglect of the special problem of Montaigne's
influence on Shakspere is less easily to be explained, seeing how much
intelligent study has been given of late by French critics to both
Shakspere and Montaigne. The influence is recognised; but here again it
is only cursorily traced. The latest study of Montaigne is that of M.
Paul Stapfer, a vigilant critic, whose services to Shakspere-study have
been recognised in both countries. But all that M. Stapfer claims for
the influence of the French essayist on the English dramatist is thus
put:--

"Montaigne is perhaps too purely French to have exercised
much influence abroad. Nevertheless his influence on England
is not to be disdained. Shakspere appreciated him (_le
goutait_); he has inserted in the TEMPEST a passage of the
chapter DES CANNIBALES; and the strong expressions of the
ESSAYS on man, the inconstant, irresolute being, contrary to
himself, marvellously vain, various and changeful, were
perhaps not unconnected with (_peut etre pas etrangeres a_)
the conception of HAMLET. The author of the scene of the
grave-diggers must have felt the savour and retained the
impression of this thought, humid and cold as the grave:
'The heart and the life of a great and triumphant emperor
are but the repast of a little worm.' The translation of
Plutarch, or rather of Amyot, by Thomas North, and that of
Montaigne by Florio, had together a great and long vogue in
the English society of the seventeenth centur