The further, hitherto utterly unexplained, words ('and yet but yaw
neither in respect of his quick sail') seem to have reference to the
sonnet [71] by which the third book of the Essays is dedicated by
Florio to Lady Grey. Montaigne is praised therein under the guise
of Talbot's name, who, 'in peace or war, at sea or land, for princes'
service, countries' good, sweetly sails before the wind.' In act ii.
sc. 2, the north-north-west and the south wind were already alluded
to, which are said to influence Hamlet's madness.

The translators and admirers of Montaigne are meant when Hamlet says
that 'to make true diction of him, his semblable' must be 'his mirror;
and, who else would trace him, his umbrage--nothing more.' That is,
one must be Montaigne, or become his absolute admirer, 'his umbrage,'
'his semblable,' in order to do justice to him. The whole scene is
full of allusions, easily explainable from the point of view we have
indicated. So also, the reference to self-knowledge ('to know himself)
--an art which Montaigne never learnt and the 'two weapons' with which
he fights, are full of deep meaning.

It was probably no small number of men that took delight in the French
essayist. No doubt, the jest of the gravedigger is directed against
them, when he says that if the mad Hamlet does not recover his wits
in England, it is no great matter there, because there the men are
as mad as he.

Montaigne, especially in Essay III. (2) and III. (5), brings forward
indecencies of the most shameless kind. We quite bear in mind what
period it was when he wrote. Our manners and ideas are totally
different from those of the sixteenth century. But what indignation
must Shakspere have felt--he who had already created his noblest female