[37] B. III, ch. 10.
[38] Act V, Scene 4.
[39] On reverting to Mr. Feis's book I find that in 1884 he had noted this and others of the above parallels, which I had not observed when writing on the subject in 1883. In view of some other parallels and clues drawn by him, our agreements leave me a little uneasy. He decides, for instance (p. 93) that Hamlet's phrase "foul as Vulcan's stithy" is a "sly thrust at Florio" who in his preface calls himself "Montaigne's Vulcan"; that the Queen's phrase "thunders in the index" is a reference to "the Index of the Holy See and its thunders"; and that Hamlet's lines "Why let the stricken deer go weep" are clearly a satire against Montaigne, "who fights shy of action." Mr. Feis's book contains so many propositions of this order that it is difficult to feel sure that he is ever judicious. Still, I find myself in agreement with him on some four or five points of textual coincidence in the two authors.
[40] Act I, Scene 4.
[41] B. II, Chap. 33.
[42] It is further relevant to note that in the essay Of Drunkenness (ii. 2) Montaigne observes that "drunkenness amongst others appeareth to me a gross and brutish vice," that "the worst estate of man is where he loseth the knowledge and government of himself," and that "the grossest and rudest nation that liveth amongst us at this day, is only that which keepeth it in credit." The reference is to Germany: but Shakspere in Othello (Act II, Sc. 3) makes Iago pronounce the English harder drinkers than either the Danes or the Hollanders; and the lines:
"This heavy-headed revel, east and west, Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations; They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase, Soil our addition."
might also be reminiscent of Montaigne, though of course there is nothing peculiar in such a coincidence.
[43] B. III, Chap. 7.
[44] B. III, Chap. 4.