At the same time we have
directed the reader's attention to the fact of his having said that
the 'common weal requires some to betray, some to lie, and some to
massacre,' [39] and that this task must be left to those who are
ready to sacrifice their honour and their conscience, and that men
who do not feel up to such deeds must leave their commission to the
stronger ones. This French nobleman naively avows that he has resolved
upon withdrawing into private life, not because he is averse to
public life--for the latter, he says, would 'perhaps equally suit
him'--but because, by doing so, he hopes to serve his Prince all the
more joyfully and all the more sincerely, thus following the free
choice of his own judgment and reason, and not submitting to any
restraint (_obligation particuliere_), which he hates in every
shape. And he adds the following curious moral doctrine:--'This is
the way of the world. We let the laws and precepts follow their way,
but we keep another course.' [40]
Who could mistake Shakspere's satire against this sentimental nobleman,
who fights shy of action, in making Hamlet recite a little ditty at a
moment when he has become convinced of the King's guilt:--
Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
Thus runs the world away.
This gifted Frenchman, Montaigne, was a new, a strange, phenomenon
in the eyes of Shakspere and his active and energetic countrymen.
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