"When I consider the most glorious exploits of war, methinks I see that those who have had the conduct of them employ neither counsel nor deliberation about them, but for fashion sake, and leave the best part of the enterprise to fortune; and on the confidence they have in her aid, they still go beyond the limits of all discourse. Casual rejoicings and strange furies ensue among their deliberations."[17] etc. Compare finally Florio's translation of the lines of Manilius cited by Montaigne at the end of the 47th Essay of the First Book: "'Tis best for ill-advis'd, wisdom may fail,[18] Fortune proves not the cause that should prevail, But here and there without respect doth sail: A higher power forsooth us overdraws, And mortal states guides with immortal laws." It is to be remembered, indeed, that the idea expressed in Hamlet's words to Horatio is partly anticipated in the rhymed speech of the Player-King in the play-scene in Act III., which occurs in the First Quarto: "Our wills, our fates do so contrary run That our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own." Such a passage, reiterating a familiar commonplace, might seem at first sight to tell against the view that Hamlet's later speech to Horatio is an echo of Montaigne. But that view being found justified by the evidence, and the idea in that passage being exactly coincident with Montaigne's, while the above lines are only partially parallel in meaning, we are forced to admit that Shakspere may have been influenced by Montaigne even where a partial precedent might be found in his own or other English work. III. The phrase "discourse of reason," which is spoken by Hamlet in his first soliloquy,[19] and which first appears in the Second Quarto, is not used by Shakspere in any play before HAMLET; and he uses it again in TROILUS AND CRESSIDA;[20] while "discourse of thought" appears in OTHELLO;[21] and "discourse," in the sense of reasoning faculty, is used in Hamlet's last soliloquy.[22] In English literature this use of the word seems to be special in Shakspere's period,[23] and it has been noted by an admirer as a finely Shaksperean expression. But the expression "discourse of reason" occurs at least four times in Montaigne's Essays, and in Florio's translation of them: in the essay[24] THAT TO PHILOSOPHISE IS TO LEARN HOW TO DIE; again at the close of the essay[25] _A demain les affaires_; again in the first paragraph of the APOLOGY OF RAIMOND SEBONDE[26]; and yet again in the chapter on THE HISTORY OF SPURINA;[27] and though it seems to be scholastic in origin, and occurs once or twice before 1600 in English books, it is difficult to doubt that, like the other phrase above cited, it came to Shakspere through Florio's Montaigne. The word _discours_ is a hundred times used singly by Montaigne, as by Shakspere in the phrase "of such large discourse," for the process of ratiocination.