Shakspere and Montaigne

mpleted their studies, they go to London to seek for the most modest livelihood. Bitter experience had taught these disciples of learning that the employment for which they waited could only be gained by bribery; and bribe they certainly could not, owing to their want of means. Some of them already show a true Werther-like yearning for solitude:--

We will be gone unto the downs of Kent....

STUDIOSO.

So shall we shun the company of men,
That grows more hateful as the world grows old.
We'll teach the murm'ring brooks in tears to flow,
And sleepy rocks to wail our passed woe. [4]

Another utters sentiments of grief, coming near the words of despair of Faust. There is a tone in them of what the Germans call
Weltschmerz:--

Curs'd be our thoughts, whene'er they dream of hope,
Bann'd be those haps that henceforth flatter us,
When mischief dogs us still and still for aye,
From our first birth until our burying day. [5]