' [68]
The ideas of Shakspere as to the duties of a writer were different,
indeed, from the contents of the book which Hamlet characterises by
his exclamation.
As to Polonius' answer: 'Though this be madness, yet there's method in
it,' the public had no difficulty in finding out what was meant by
that 'madness,' and to whom it applied.
What may the great master have thought of an author who, as Montaigne
does, jots down everything in kaleidoscopic manner, just as changeful
accident brings it into his head? In Essay III. (2) we read:--
'I cannot get a fixed hold of my object. It moves
and reels as if with a natural drunkenness. I just seize
it at some point, such as I find it at the moment, when I
amuse myself with it. I do not describe its essence, but
its volatile passage ... from one minute to the other.'
Elsewhere he prides himself on his method of being able to write as long
as there is paper and ink.
Hamlet says to the players: 'We'll e'en to it like French falconers: fly
at anything we see.' Montaigne's manner of spying out and pouncing upon
things cannot be better depicted than by comparing it with a French
falconer's manner. In the first act already, Hamlet, after the
ghost-scene, answers the friends who approach, with the holla-call of
a falconer:--
Hillo, ho, ho, boy; come, bird, come!
Furthermore, Hamlet says in act ii.
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