'
We shall strive to comply with his wish by drawing the picture of this
most interesting, and in his intellectual features thoroughly modern,
man, from the contours furnished by his own hand. We shall exert
ourselves to lay stress on those characteristics by which he must
have created most surprise among his logically more consistent
contemporaries on the other side of the Channel.
In taking up Montaigne's 'Essais' for perusal we are presently under
the spell of a feeling as though we were listening to the words of a
most versatile man of the world, in whom we become more and more
interested. We find in him not only an amiable representative of the
upper classes, but also a man who has deeply entered into the spirit
of classic antiquity. Soon he convinces us that he is honestly
searching after truth; that he pursues the noble aim of placing
himself in harmony with God and the world. Does he succeed in this?
Does he arrive at a clear conclusion? What are the fruits of his
thoughts? what his teachings? In what relation did he stand to his
century?
As in no other epoch, men had, especially those who came out into the
fierce light of publicity, to take sides in party warfare during the
much-agitated time of the Reformation. To which party did Montaigne
belong? Was he one of the Humanists, who, averse to all antiquated
dogmas, preached a new doctrine, which was to bring mankind once more
into unison with the long despised laws of Nature?
We hope to show successfully that Shakspere wrote his 'Hamlet' for
the great and noble object of warning his contemporaries against the
disturbing inconsistencies of the philosophy of Montaigne who preached
the rights of Nature, whilst yet clinging to dogmatic tenets which
cannot be reconciled with those rights.
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