An enquiry into the mental pathology of this character may aptly conclude with a quotation from the writings of a kindred and cotemporary mind to that of the great dramatist, namely, those of Michael de Montaigne. Coleridge, in his truly beautiful lectures, which have been so happily preserved by the notes of Mr. Payne Collier, admits that “such a mind as Hamlet's is near akin to madness” from its “greatness of genius,” which is the sense in which Dryden used the word “wit” in the line—
“Great wit to madness nearly is allied.” Montaigne actually saw the saddest exemplification of this truth in one of the greatest “wits” of the age—the immortal Tasso. His comments on the sad spectacle are less harsh than they seem ; for although very far from being deficient in human sympathy and pity, he also had a strong dash of the cynic in him, cynicism without misanthropy. “What puts the soul beside itself, and more usually throws it into madness, but her own promptness, vigour, and agility, and finally, her own proper force : Of what is the most subtle
folly made, but of the most subtle wisdom ? As great friendships spring from great enmities, and vigorous health from mortal diseases, so from the rare and vivid agitations of our souls proceed the most wonderful and most distracted frenzies; 'tis but half a turn of the toe from the one to the
other. In the actions of madmen, we see how infinitely madness resembles the most vigorous operations of the soul. Who does
not know how indescribable the
difference is
betwixt folly and the sprightly aspirations of a free soul, and the effects of a supreme and extraordinary virtue Plato says, that melancholy persons are the most capable of dis
cipline, and the most excellent; and accordingly in none is there so great a propension to madness.
Great wits are
ruined by their own proper force and pliability; into what a condition, through his own agitation and promptness of fancy, is one of the most judicious, ingenious, and nearest formed of any other Italian poet to the air of the ancient and true poesy, lately fallen 2 Has he not vast obligation to this vivacity that has destroyed him 2 to this light that has I
