We hope to prove that Shakspere who made it his task 'to hold the mirror
up to Nature,' and who, like none before him, caught up her innermost
secrets, rendering them with the chastest expression; that Shakspere,
who denied in few but impressive words the vitality of any art or
culture which uses means not consistent with the intentions of Nature:
Yet Nature is made better by no mean,
But Nature makes that mean; so o'er that art
Which, you say, adds to Nature, is an art
That Nature makes; [21]--
we hope to prove successfully that Shakspere, this true apostle of
Nature, held it to be sufficient, ay, most godly, to be a champion
of 'natural things;' that he advocated a true and simple obedience
to her laws, and a renunciation of all transcendental dogmas,
miscalled 'holy and reverent,' which domineer over human nature,
and hinder the free development of its nobler faculties.
Let us then impartially examine the character and the work of Montaigne.
If we discover contradictions in both, we shall not endeavour to argue
them away, but present them with matter-of-fact fidelity; for it is
on those very contradictions that the enigmatic, as yet unexplained,
character of Hamlet reposes.
1: Collier's _Drama_, i. 265.
2: _Kind-hartes Dreame_, 1592.
3: Act v. sc. 4.
4: Act v sc. 4.
5: Act iii sc. 5.
6: _The Return from Parnassus_, act v.
Pages:
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50