'
This chairman, as often observed, by which Montaigne's thoughts are
to be guided, is an ecclesiastic authority.
In 'Hamlet,' also, it is a 'canon' [29] fixed against self-slaughter,
which restrains him from leaving, out of his own impulse, this whilom
paradise, this 'unweeded garden' of life.
Montaigne, whose philosophy aims at making us conversant with death
as with a friend, is yet terrified by it. Altogether, he says, he would
fain pass his life at his ease; and if he could escape from blows,
even by taking refuge under a calf's skin, [30] he would not be the
man who would shrink from it.
In a few graphic words Shakspere brands this cowardly clinging to life.
In the scene where Hamlet gives to Polonius nothing more willingly
than his leave, the new quarto (in every other respect the conclusion
of this scene is identical in both editions) contains these additional
words:--'Except my life, except my life, except my life.' Of the 'calf's
skin' we hear in the first scene of act v., where those are called sheep
and calves, who seek out assurance in parchments which are made of
sheep-skins and of calves-skins too.
Montaigne, who does not cease pondering over the pale fellow, Death,
looks for consolation from the ancients. He takes Sokrates as the
model of all great qualities; and he reproduces, in his own manner,
the speech this sage, who was fearless of death, made before his
judges.
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