That is to say, the admittedly learned Jonson and Chapman show no differentiating effect of classical reading, but Shakespeare's writing does. Now, it so happens that all of the matter which Mr. Collins here takes as typically Greek is to be found many times over in Montaigne, to whose Essays he will finally allow no formative influence over Shakespeare, though we know that Shakespeare read in them. From this point the argument becomes more and more irrelevant. Admitting that "the development of the author of the plays preceding the second edition of HAMLET into the author of the plays succeeding it . . . is at least difficult to explain as merely the natural result of maturer powers," Mr. Collins goes on: "If this was the case, we must assume that instinct led Shakespeare to the Greek conception of the scope and functions of tragedy, and that by a certain natural affinity he caught also the accent and tone as well as some of the most striking characteristics of Greek tragedy." Now, Mr. Collins had already admitted that, rich and plastic as was the genius of Shakespeare, "its creative energy was never self-evolved." He has thus finally failed to face his problem, and we are left with mere generalities which leave the problem untouched. 2 Id. p. 71.

2

1 Studies, pp. 86-87.

1

Nothing is made out by arguing, "It is surely not too much to say that MACBETH, metaphysically considered, simply unfolds what is latent in" a passage of the AGAMEMNON (210-16) telling how Agamemnon "when he had put on the yokeband of Necessity . . . changed to all - daring recklessness." Had Shakespeare ever referred to the AGAMEMNON, the proposition might have had some significance, however ill it could be supported; but as the case stands it has none. And the further theorem as to an affinity between the "simplicity and concentration" of Attic tragedy and the "comprehensiveness and discursiveness" of Shakespeare's has neither a bearing on the thesis of "influence," nor any purport save one which countervails that thesis.

We return yet again, then, to our primary problem. Can "influence" be no better proved in regard to Shakespeare's reading of Montaigne than in regard to his alleged study of the classics? To establish the affirmative is the aim of the main part of this volume; and as against Mr. Collins's negative position, which consists so ill with the method of his exposition concerning the classics, I will here submit what seem to me to be the main conditions of a valid proof.

1. Perusal of one writer by another, later in

1

time, is in the absence of external evidence to be established primarily by significant verbal coincidences. When Mr. Collins denies that there is any real resemblance between Edmund's speech in Lear, i, 2, ‘This is the excellent foppery of the world,' etc., and the passage in the essay OF JUDGING OF OTHERS' DEATH, cited by me,' he commits one of several textual oversights, by omitting an essential part of the passage. The sentences textually given by me follow, as I have stated, upon one in which Montaigne through Florio speaks of the "common foppery" as to the sun mourning Cæsar's death for a year; and this Mr. Collins does not mention. But the verbal coincidence is a main part of the clue.

2. A significant verbal coincidence, concurring with a coincidence of idea, tells of "influence" in the way of setting up a train of thought. This is claimed to occur, for instance, in the passage last referred to.

3. A series of coincidences, verbal and material, running through a play or series of plays, strengthens the proof of influence.

4. Where the influenced author can be shown -as Mr. Collins virtually admits to be the case in the development of Shakespeare from HAMLET 2 Below, p. 108.

1 Studies, pp. 282-83.

onwards -to exhibit a new and important movement of thought and habit of reflection, congruous with much that is characteristic in the author exercising the influence proved as aforesaid, we are entitled to count it as important, and to doubt whether such a habit of reflection would have been overtly developed to anything like the same extent in the absence of the influence in question.

If my essay substantially makes out a case of this kind for the influence of Montaigne upon Shakespeare, it is so far justified. If I have failed to show more than that Shakespeare in a number of passages has parallels with Montaigne which might or might not be chance coincidences, the main thesis has broken down. I would merely beg the reader to note that the possibility of chance coincidence is repeatedly recognised by me in regard to passages which would singly count for little, but are noted for the sake of completeness of

survey.

I

THE GENERAL SHAKESPEARE PROBLEM

MANY reasonable judgments convey less edification than is unwittingly set up by one of another order, put forth by the late Mr. Halliwell Phillipps in 1850. Later in his life, the same industrious student did good service in commentating Shakespeare; but it required probably the confidence of youth as well as the preevolutionary habit of thought to make possible the utterance in question. "An opinion has been gaining ground," wrote Mr. Halliwell Phillipps, "and has been encouraged by writers whose judgment is entitled to respectful consideration, that almost if not all the commentary on the works of Shakespeare of a necessary and desirable kind has already been given to the world." No critic, it may be presumed, would venture such a deliverance to-day. In an age in which all lore,

1 Preface to Eng. trans. of Simrock on The Plots of Shakspere's Plays, 1850.