83: Goethe's Faust.
84: We must mention that John Sterling, in an essay on Montaigne (Westminster Review, 1838), makes the following introductory remarks:—'On the whole, the celebrated soliloquy in Hamlet presents a more characteristic and expressive resemblance to much of Montaigne's writings than any other portion of the plays of the great dramatist which we at present remember, though it would doubtless be easy to trace many apparent transferences from the Frenchman into the Englishman's works, as both were keen and many-sided observers in the same age and neighbouring countries. But Hamlet was in those days no popular type of character; nor were Montaigne's views and tone familiar to men till he himself had made them so. Now, the Prince of Denmark is very nearly a Montaigne, lifted to a higher eminence, and agitated by more striking circumstances and severer destiny, and altogether a somewhat more passionate structure of man. It is not, however, very wonderful that Hamlet, who was but a part of Shakspere, should exhibit to us more than the whole of Montaigne, and the external facts appear to contradict any notion of a French ancestry for the Dane, as the play is said to have been produced in 1600, and the translation of the English not for three years later.'
During our long search through the Commentaries written on Hamlet, we also met with the following treatise: 'HAMLET; ein Tendenzdrama Sheakspeare's (sic!!) gegen die skeptische und kosmopolitische Weltanschauung des Michael de Montaigne, von G. F. Stedefeld, Kreisgerichtsrath. Berlin, 1871.'
The author of the latter-mentioned little book holds it to be probable that Shakspere wrote his Hamlet for the object of freeing himself from the impressions of the famous French sceptic. He regards this masterwork as 'the Drama of the Doubter;' as 'the apotheosis of a practical Christianity.' Hamlet, he says, is wanting in Christian piety. He has no faith, no love, no hope. His last words, 'The rest is silence,' show that he has no expectation of a future life. He must perish because he has given up the belief in a divine government of the world and in a moral order of things.
We believe we have read the Essays of Michel Montaigne with great attention. We not only do not regard him as a 'sceptic' in the sense meant by Mr. Stedefeld, but we hold him, as well as Hamlet, to be an adherent of the so-called 'practical Christianity' —at least, of what both Montaigne and Hamlet reckon to be such. This 'practical Christianity,' however, is a notion somewhat difficult to define.