Montaigne and Shakspere

by J. M. Robertson

[79] 2 H. IV., iv. 3

[80] ii. 2

[81] ii. 10.

[82] So far as I remember, the idea of suicide as a desertion of one's post without the deity's permission is first found, in English literature, in Sidney, and he would find it in Montaigne's essay on the Custom of the Isle of Cea (edit. Firmin-Didot, i, 367).

[83] When this is compared with the shorter speech of similar drift in the anonymous play of Edward III. ("To die is all as common as to live" etc., Act iv., sc. 4) it will be seen that the querying form as well as the elaboration constitutes a special resemblance between the speech in Shakspere and the passages in Montaigne

[84] Apology of Raimond Sebonde.

[85] ii, 6, Of Exercise or Practice.

[86] Apology.

[87] Ibid., near end.

[88] On Isis and Osiris, c. 26.