spite of being “distinguished by his commonsense and liberal 
educational outlook.”

     Even this brief attention to Senecanism and scholasticism 
in ancient Rome will help to understand how oral tradition in 
Western literature is transmitted by the Senecan vogue, and 
was gradually obliterated by the printed page in the later 
eighteenth century. The paradox that Senecanism is both 
highbrow in medieval scholasticism and lowbrow in the 
Elizabethan popular drama will be found to be resolved by this 
oral factor. But for Montaigne, as for Burton, Bacon, and 
Browne, there was no enigma. Senecan antithesis and “amble” 
(as described in Senecan Amble  by George Williamson) provided 
the authentic means of scientific observation and experience of 
mental process. When only the eye is engaged, the multi-
levelled gestures and resonances of Senecan oral action are