is at least much more vivid than that
drawn between Shakspere's lines and one of Seneca:

Curae leves loquuntur: ingentes stupent[107]--"Light
troubles speak: the great ones are dumb."

Certainly no one of these latter passages would singly suffice to prove
that Shakspere had read Montaigne, though the peculiar coincidence of
one word in Edgar's speech with a word in Florio, above noted, would
alone raise the question. But even had Shakspere not passed, as we shall
see cause to acknowledge, beyond the most melancholy mood of Montaigne
into one of far sterner and more stringent pessimism, an absence or
infrequency of suggestions of Montaigne in the plays between 1605 and
1610 would be a very natural result of Jonson's gibe in VOLPONE. That
gibe, indeed, is not really so ill-natured as the term "steal" is apt to
make it sound for our ears, especially if we are prepossessed--as even
Mr. Fleay still seems to be--by the old commentators' notion of a deep
ill-will on Jonson's part towards Shakspere. There was probably no such
ill-will in the matter, the burly scholar's habit of robust banter being
enough to account for the form of his remark. As a matter of fact, his
own plays are strewn with classic transcriptions; and though he
evidently plumed himself on his power of "invention"[108] in the matter
of plots--a faculty which he knew Shakspere to lack--he cannot
conceivably have meant to charge his rival with having committed any
discreditable plagiarism in drawing upon Montaigne. At most he would
mean to convey that borrowing from the English translation of Montaigne
was an easy game as compared with his own scholar-like practice of
translating from the Greek and Latin, and from out-of-the-way authors,
too.

However that might be, the fact stands that Shakspere did about 1604
reproduce Montaigne as we have seen; and it remains to consider what the
reproduction signifies, as regards Shakspere's mental development.

III.

But first there has to be asked the question whether the Montaigne
influence is unique or exceptional. Of the many literary influences
which an Elizabethan dramatist might undergo, was Montaigne's the only
one which wrought deeply upon Shakspere's spirit, apart from those of
his contemporary dramatists and the pre-existing plays, which were then
models and points of departure? It is clear that Shakspere must have
thought much and critically of the methods and the utterance of his
co-rivals