the essays we find many
allusions to the ideal of the imperturbable man, which Montaigne has in
the above cited passages brought into connection with his ideal of
friendship. It could well be, then--though here we cannot argue the
point with confidence--that in this as in other matters the strong
general impression that Montaigne was so well fitted to make on
Shakspere's mind was the source of such a change in the conception and
exposition of Hamlet's relation to Horatio as is set up by Hamlet's
protestation of his long-standing admiration and love for his friend.
Shakspere's own relations with one or other of his noble patrons would
make him specially alive to such suggestion.

XVI. We now come to the suggested resemblance between the "To be or not
to be" soliloquy and the general tone of Montaigne on the subject of
death. On this resemblance I am less disposed to lay stress now than I
was on a first consideration of the subject thirteen years ago. While I
find new coincidences of detail on a more systematic search, I am less
impressed by the alleged general resemblance of tone. In point of fact,
the general drift of Hamlet's soliloquy is rather alien to the general
tone of Montaigne on the same theme. That tone, as we shall see,
harmonises much more nearly with the speech of the Duke to Claudio, on
the same theme, in MEASURE FOR MEASURE. What really seems to subsist in
the "To be" soliloquy, after a careful scrutiny, is a series of echoes
of single thoughts; but there is the difficulty that some of these occur
in the earlier form of the soliloquy in the First Quarto, a circumstance
which tends--though not necessarily[64]--to throw a shade of doubt on
the apparent echoes in the finished form of the speech. We can but weigh
the facts as impartially as may be.

First, there is the striking coincidence of the word "consummation"
(which appears only in the Second Quarto), with Florio's translation of
_aneantissement_ in the essay OF PHYSIOGNOMY, as above noted. Secondly,
there is a curious resemblance between the phrase "take arms against a
sea of troubles" and a passage in Florio's version of the same essay,
which has somehow been overlooked in the disputes over Shakspere's line.
It runs:

"I sometimes suffer myself by starts to be surprised with
the pinchings of these unpleasant conceits, which, whilst I
arm myself to expel or wrestle against them, assail and beat
me. Lo here another huddle or tide of mischi