Shakespeare Not Bacon; Some Arguments from Shakespeare's Copy of Florio's Montaigne in the British Museum - Francis Peter Gervais

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ...has been noticed by most writers on the subject, including Pater, who mentions it in his chapter on Montaigne; but what has not been noticed is that the parallel occurs in a part of "the Montaigne" specially referred to by notes 3 both at the end and in the margin of a book which purports to have Shakespeare's signature in it. Fifth--The confidence in other men's honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity, and therefore doth God willingly favour it. ("The Montaigne.") This fact is three times mentioned in Shakespeare--For unstained thoughts do seldom dream of evil (Lucrece, 88), A credulous father! and a brother noble, Whose nature is so far from doing harm That he suspects none (Lear, 1. ii. 195-196), The Moor is of a free and open nature, That thinks men honest that but seem to be so (Othello, 1. iii. 405-406). In each of these cases Tarquin, Edmund, and Iago take advantage of this "confidence" to entrap their victims, Lucrece, Edgar, and Othello; it is hardly possible, therefore, that Shakespeare agrees with Montaigne that God willingly favours unqualified confidence in other men's honesty. In this world we must be "wise as serpents " as well as "harmless as doves." We now pass to a parallel where there are no verbal likenesses, nor indeed a like way of putting them, but where the ideas on a cardinal point of practical philosophy are similar and in themselves very interesting--Sixth--Opinio est quadam effeminata ac levis nee in dolore magis, quam eadem in voluptate; qua quum liquescimus fluimusque molitia, apis aculeum sine clamore ferre non possumus. Totum in eo est tit tibi imperes. "There is a certain effeminate and light opinion, and that no more in sorrow than it is...