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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of  The Essays of Montaigne, V1
+#1 in our series by Michel de Montaigne, Translator: Cotton
+Edited by William Carew Hazlitt, 1877
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+Title: The Essays of Montaigne, V1
+
+Author: Michel de Montaigne
+
+Official Release Date: October, 2002 [Etext #3581]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+[The actual date this file first posted = 05/28/01]
+[Last modified date = 11/08/01]
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+Edition: 11
+
+Language: English
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, V1
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+
+
+ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
+
+Translated by Charles Cotton
+
+Edited by William Carew Hazilitt
+
+1877
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME 1.
+     Preface
+     The Life of Montaigne
+     The Letters of Montaigne
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+The present publication is intended to supply a recognised deficiency in
+our literature--a library edition of the Essays of Montaigne.  This great
+French writer deserves to be regarded as a classic, not only in the land
+of his birth, but in all countries and in all literatures.  His Essays,
+which are at once the most celebrated and the most permanent of his
+productions, form a magazine out of which such minds as those of Bacon
+and Shakespeare did not disdain to help themselves; and, indeed, as
+Hallam observes, the Frenchman's literary importance largely results from
+the share which his mind had in influencing other minds, coeval and
+subsequent.  But, at the same time, estimating the value and rank of the
+essayist, we are not to leave out of the account the drawbacks and the
+circumstances of the period: the imperfect state of education, the
+comparative scarcity of books, and the limited opportunities of
+intellectual intercourse.  Montaigne freely borrowed of others, and he
+has found men willing to borrow of him as freely.  We need not wonder at
+the reputation which he with seeming facility achieved.  He was, without
+being aware of it, the leader of a new school in letters and morals.  His
+book was different from all others which were at that date in the world.
+It diverted the ancient currents of thought into new channels.  It told
+its readers, with unexampled frankness, what its writer's opinion was
+about men and things, and threw what must have been a strange kind of new
+light on many matters but darkly understood.  Above all, the essayist
+uncased himself, and made his intellectual and physical organism public
+property.  He took the world into his confidence on all subjects.  His
+essays were a sort of literary anatomy, where we get a diagnosis of the
+writer's mind, made by himself at different levels and under a large
+variety of operating influences.
+
+Of all egotists, Montaigne, if not the greatest, was the most
+fascinating, because, perhaps, he was the least affected and most
+truthful.  What he did, and what he had professed to do, was to dissect
+his mind, and show us, as best he could, how it was made, and what
+relation it bore to external objects.  He investigated his mental
+structure as a schoolboy pulls his watch to pieces, to examine the
+mechanism of the works; and the result, accompanied by illustrations
+abounding with originality and force, he delivered to his fellow-men in a
+book.
+
+Eloquence, rhetorical effect, poetry, were alike remote from his design.
+He did not write from necessity, scarcely perhaps for fame.  But he
+desired to leave France, nay, and the world, something to be remembered
+by, something which should tell what kind of a man he was--what he felt,
+thought, suffered--and he succeeded immeasurably, I apprehend, beyond his
+expectations.
+
+It was reasonable enough that Montaigne should expect for his work a
+certain share of celebrity in Gascony, and even, as time went on,
+throughout France; but it is scarcely probable that he foresaw how his
+renown was to become world-wide; how he was to occupy an almost unique
+position as a man of letters and a moralist; how the Essays would be
+read, in all the principal languages of Europe, by millions of
+intelligent human beings, who never heard of Perigord or the League, and
+who are in doubt, if they are questioned, whether the author lived in the
+sixteenth or the eighteenth century.  This is true fame.  A man of genius
+belongs to no period and no country.  He speaks the language of nature,
+which is always everywhere the same.
+
+The text of these volumes is taken from the first edition of Cotton's
+version, printed in 3 vols.  8vo, 1685-6, and republished in 1693, 1700,
+1711, 1738, and 1743, in the same number of volumes and the same size.
+In the earliest impression the errors of the press are corrected merely
+as far as page 240 of the first volume, and all the editions follow one
+another.  That of 1685-6 was the only one which the translator lived to
+see.  He died in 1687, leaving behind him an interesting and little-known
+collection of poems, which appeared posthumously, 8vo, 1689.
+
+It was considered imperative to correct Cotton's translation by a careful
+collation with the 'variorum' edition of the original, Paris, 1854,
+4 vols.  8vo or 12mo, and parallel passages from Florin's earlier
+undertaking have occasionally been inserted at the foot of the page.  A
+Life of the Author and all his recovered Letters, sixteen in number, have
+also been given; but, as regards the correspondence, it can scarcely be
+doubted that it is in a purely fragmentary state.  To do more than
+furnish a sketch of the leading incidents in Montaigne's life seemed, in
+the presence of Bayle St. John's charming and able biography, an attempt
+as difficult as it was useless.
+
+The besetting sin of both Montaigne's translators seems to have been a
+propensity for reducing his language and phraseology to the language and
+phraseology of the age and country to which they belonged, and, moreover,
+inserting paragraphs and words, not here and there only, but constantly
+and habitually, from an evident desire and view to elucidate or
+strengthen their author's meaning.  The result has generally been
+unfortunate; and I have, in the case of all these interpolations on
+Cotton's part, felt bound, where I did not cancel them, to throw them
+down into the notes, not thinking it right that Montaigne should be
+allowed any longer to stand sponsor for what he never wrote; and
+reluctant, on the other hand, to suppress the intruding matter entirely,
+where it appeared to possess a value of its own.
+
+Nor is redundancy or paraphrase the only form of transgression in Cotton,
+for there are places in his author which he thought proper to omit, and
+it is hardly necessary to say that the restoration of all such matter to
+the text was considered essential to its integrity and completeness.
+
+My warmest thanks are due to my father, Mr Registrar Hazlitt, the author
+of the well-known and excellent edition of Montaigne published in 1842,
+for the important assistance which he has rendered to me in verifying and
+retranslating the quotations, which were in a most corrupt state, and of
+which Cotton's English versions were singularly loose and inexact, and
+for the zeal with which he has co-operated with me in collating the
+English text, line for line and word for word, with the best French
+edition.
+
+By the favour of Mr F. W. Cosens, I have had by me, while at work on this
+subject, the copy of Cotgrave's Dictionary, folio, 1650, which belonged
+to Cotton.  It has his autograph and copious MSS.  notes, nor is it too
+much to presume that it is the very book employed by him in his
+translation.
+W.  C.  H.
+KENSINGTON, November 1877.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THE FIRST.
+
+CHAP.
+
+I.      That men by various ways arrive at the same end.
+
+II.     Of Sorrow.
+
+III.    That our affections carry themselves beyond us.
+
+IV.     That the soul discharges her passions upon false objects, where
+        the true are wanting.
+
+V.      Whether the governor of a place besieged ought himself to go out
+        to parley.
+
+VI.     That the hour of parley is dangerous.
+
+VII.    That the intention is judge of our actions
+
+VIII.   Of idleness.
+
+IX.     Of liars.
+
+X.      Of quick or slow speech.
+
+XI.     Of prognostications.
+
+XII.    Of constancy.
+
+XIII.   The ceremony of the interview of princes.
+
+XIV.    That men are justly punished for being obstinate in the defence
+        of a fort that is not in reason to be defended.
+
+XV.     Of the punishment of cowardice.
+
+XVI.    A proceeding of some ambassadors.
+
+XVII.   Of fear.
+
+XVIII.  That men are not to judge of our happiness till after death.
+
+XIX.    That to study philosophy is to learn to die.
+
+XX.     Of the force of imagination.
+
+XXI.    That the profit of one man is the damage of another.
+
+XXII.   Of custom, and that we should not easily change a law received.
+
+XXIII.  Various events from the same counsel.
+
+XXIV.   Of pedantry.
+
+XXV.    Of the education of children.
+
+XXVI.   That it is folly to measure truth and error by our own capacity.
+
+XXVII.  Of friendship.
+
+XXVIII. Nine-and-twenty sonnets of Estienne de la Boetie.
+
+XXIX.   Of moderation.
+
+XXX.    Of cannibals.
+
+XXXI.   That a man is soberly to judge of the divine ordinances.
+
+XXXII.  That we are to avoid pleasures, even at the expense of
+        life.
+
+XXXIII. That fortune is oftentimes observed to act by the rule of reason.
+
+XXXIV.  Of one defect in our government.
+
+XXXV.   Of the custom of wearing clothes.
+
+XXXVI.  Of Cato the Younger.
+
+XXXVII. That we laugh and cry for the same thing.
+
+XXXVIII. Of solitude.
+
+XXXIX.  A consideration upon Cicero.
+
+XL.     That the relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon
+        the opinion we have of them.
+
+XLI.    Not to communicate a man's honour.
+
+XLII.   Of the inequality amongst us.
+
+XLIII.  Of sumptuary laws.
+
+XLIV.   Of sleep.
+
+XLV.    Of the battle of Dreux.
+
+XLVI.   Of names.
+
+XLVII.  Of the uncertainty of our judgment.
+
+XLVIII. Of war-horses, or destriers.
+
+XLIX.   Of ancient customs.
+
+L.      Of Democritus and Heraclitus.
+
+LI.     Of the vanity of words.
+
+LII.    Of the parsimony of the Ancients.
+
+LIII.   Of a saying of Caesar.
+
+LIV.    Of vain subtleties.
+
+LV.     Of smells.
+
+LVI.    Of prayers.
+
+LVII.   Of age.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         THE LIFE OF MONTAIGNE
+
+[This is translated freely from that prefixed to the 'variorum' Paris
+edition, 1854, 4 vols.  8vo.  This biography is the more desirable that
+it contains all really interesting and important matter in the journal of
+the Tour in Germany and Italy, which, as it was merely written under
+Montaigne's dictation, is in the third person, is scarcely worth
+publication, as a whole, in an English dress.]
+
+
+The author of the Essays was born, as he informs us himself, between
+eleven and twelve o'clock in the day, the last of February 1533, at the
+chateau of St. Michel de Montaigne.  His father, Pierre Eyquem, esquire,
+was successively first Jurat of the town of Bordeaux (1530), Under-Mayor
+1536, Jurat for the second time in 1540, Procureur in 1546, and at
+length Mayor from 1553 to 1556.  He was a man of austere probity, who had
+"a particular regard for honour and for propriety in his person and
+attire .  .  .   a mighty good faith in his speech, and a conscience and
+a religious feeling inclining to superstition, rather than to the other
+extreme."[Essays, ii. 2.]  Pierre Eyquem bestowed great care on the
+education of his children, especially on the practical side of it.  To
+associate closely his son Michel with the people, and attach him to those
+who stand in need of assistance, he caused him to be held at the font by
+persons of meanest position; subsequently he put him out to nurse with a
+poor villager, and then, at a later period, made him accustom himself to
+the most common sort of living, taking care, nevertheless, to cultivate
+his mind, and superintend its development without the exercise of undue
+rigour or constraint.  Michel, who gives us the minutest account of his
+earliest years, charmingly narrates how they used to awake him by the
+sound of some agreeable music, and how he learned Latin, without
+suffering the rod or shedding a tear, before beginning French, thanks to
+the German teacher whom his father had placed near him, and who never
+addressed him except in the language of Virgil and Cicero.  The study of
+Greek took precedence.  At six years of age young Montaigne went to the
+College of Guienne at Bordeaux, where he had as preceptors the most
+eminent scholars of the sixteenth century, Nicolas Grouchy, Guerente,
+Muret, and Buchanan.  At thirteen he had passed through all the classes,
+and as he was destined for the law he left school to study that science.
+He was then about fourteen, but these early years of his life are
+involved in obscurity.  The next information that we have is that in 1554
+he received the appointment of councillor in the Parliament of Bordeaux;
+in 1559 he was at Bar-le-Duc with the court of Francis II, and in the
+year following he was present at Rouen to witness the declaration of the
+majority of Charles IX.  We do not know in what manner he was engaged on
+these occasions.
+
+Between 1556 and 1563 an important incident occurred in the life of
+Montaigne, in the commencement of his romantic friendship with Etienne de
+la Boetie, whom he had met, as he tells us, by pure chance at some
+festive celebration in the town.  From their very first interview the two
+found themselves drawn irresistibly close to one another, and during six
+years this alliance was foremost in the heart of Montaigne, as it was
+afterwards in his memory, when death had severed it.
+
+Although he blames severely in his own book [Essays, i.  27.] those who,
+contrary to the opinion of Aristotle, marry before five-and-thirty,
+Montaigne did not wait for the period fixed by the philosopher of
+Stagyra, but in 1566, in his thirty-third year, he espoused Francoise de
+Chassaigne, daughter of a councillor in the Parliament of Bordeaux.  The
+history of his early married life vies in obscurity with that of his
+youth.  His biographers are not agreed among themselves; and in the
+same degree that he lays open to our view all that concerns his secret
+thoughts, the innermost mechanism of his mind, he observes too much
+reticence in respect to his public functions and conduct, and his social
+relations.  The title of Gentleman in Ordinary to the King, which he
+assumes, in a preface, and which Henry II.  gives him in a letter, which
+we print a little farther on; what he says as to the commotions of
+courts, where he passed a portion of his life; the Instructions which he
+wrote under the dictation of Catherine de Medici for King Charles IX.,
+and his noble correspondence with Henry IV., leave no doubt, however, as
+to the part which he played in the transactions of those times, and we
+find an unanswerable proof of the esteem in which he was held by the most
+exalted personages, in a letter which was addressed to him by Charles at
+the time he was admitted to the Order of St. Michael, which was, as he
+informs us himself, the highest honour of the French noblesse.
+
+According to Lacroix du Maine, Montaigne, upon the death of his eldest
+brother, resigned his post of Councillor, in order to adopt the military
+profession, while, if we might credit the President Bouhier, he never
+discharged any functions connected with arms.  However, several passages
+in the Essays seem to indicate that he not only took service, but that he
+was actually in numerous campaigns with the Catholic armies.  Let us add,
+that on his monument he is represented in a coat of mail, with his casque
+and gauntlets on his right side, and a lion at his feet, all which
+signifies, in the language of funeral emblems, that the departed has been
+engaged in some important military transactions.
+
+However it may be as to these conjectures, our author, having arrived at
+his thirty-eighth year, resolved to dedicate to study and contemplation
+the remaining term of his life; and on his birthday, the last of February
+1571, he caused a philosophical inscription, in Latin, to be placed upon
+one of the walls of his chateau, where it is still to be seen, and of
+which the translation is to this effect:--"In the year of Christ .  .  .
+in his thirty-eighth year, on the eve of the Calends of March, his
+birthday, Michel Montaigne, already weary of court employments and public
+honours, withdrew himself entirely into the converse of the learned
+virgins where he intends to spend the remaining moiety of the to allotted
+to him in tranquil seclusion."
+
+At the time to which we have come, Montaigne was unknown to the world of
+letters, except as a translator and editor.  In 1569 he had published a
+translation of the "Natural Theology" of Raymond de Sebonde, which he had
+solely undertaken to please his father.  In 1571 he had caused to be
+printed at Paris certain 'opuscucla' of Etienne de la Boetie; and these
+two efforts, inspired in one case by filial duty, and in the other by
+friendship, prove that affectionate motives overruled with him mere
+personal ambition as a literary man.  We may suppose that he began to
+compose the Essays at the very outset of his retirement from public
+engagements; for as, according to his own account, observes the President
+Bouhier, he cared neither for the chase, nor building, nor gardening, nor
+agricultural pursuits, and was exclusively occupied with reading and
+reflection, he devoted himself with satisfaction to the task of setting
+down his thoughts just as they occurred to him.  Those thoughts became a
+book, and the first part of that book, which was to confer immortality on
+the writer, appeared at Bordeaux in 1580.  Montaigne was then fifty-
+seven; he had suffered for some years past from renal colic and gravel;
+and it was with the necessity of distraction from his pain, and the hope
+of deriving relief from the waters, that he undertook at this time a
+great journey.  As the account which he has left of his travels in
+Germany and Italy comprises some highly interesting particulars of his
+life and personal history, it seems worth while to furnish a sketch or
+analysis of it.
+
+"The Journey, of which we proceed to describe the course simply," says
+the editor of the Itinerary, "had, from Beaumont-sur-Oise to Plombieres,
+in Lorraine, nothing sufficiently interesting to detain us .  .  .  we
+must go as far, as Basle, of which we have a description, acquainting us
+with its physical and political condition at that period, as well as with
+the character of its baths.  The passage of Montaigne through Switzerland
+is not without interest, as we see there how our philosophical traveller
+accommodated himself everywhere to the ways of the country.  The hotels,
+the provisions, the Swiss cookery, everything, was agreeable to him; it
+appears, indeed, as if he preferred to the French manners and tastes
+those of the places he was visiting, and of which the simplicity and
+freedom (or frankness) accorded more with his own mode of life and
+thinking.  In the towns where he stayed, Montaigne took care to see the
+Protestant divines, to make himself conversant with all their dogmas.  He
+even had disputations with them occasionally.
+
+"Having left Switzerland he went to Isne, an imperial then on to Augsburg
+and Munich.  He afterwards proceeded to the Tyrol, where he was agreeably
+surprised, after the warnings which he had received, at the very slight
+inconveniences which he suffered, which gave him occasion to remark that
+he had all his life distrusted the statements of others respecting
+foreign countries, each person's tastes being according to the notions of
+his native place; and that he had consequently set very little on what he
+was told beforehand.
+
+"Upon his arrival at Botzen, Montaigne wrote to Francois Hottmann, to say
+that he had been so pleased with his visit to Germany that he quitted it
+with great regret, although it was to go into Italy.  He then passed
+through Brunsol, Trent, where he put up at the Rose; thence going to
+Rovera; and here he first lamented the scarcity of crawfish, but made up
+for the loss by partaking of truffles cooked in oil and vinegar; oranges,
+citrons, and olives, in all of which he delighted."
+
+After passing a restless night, when he bethought himself in the morning
+that there was some new town or district to be seen, he rose, we are
+told, with alacrity and pleasure.
+
+His secretary, to whom he dictated his Journal, assures us that he never
+saw him take so much interest in surrounding scenes and persons, and
+believes that the complete change helped to mitigate his sufferings in
+concentrating his attention on other points.  When there was a complaint
+made that he had led his party out of the beaten route, and then returned
+very near the spot from which they started, his answer was that he had no
+settled course, and that he merely proposed to himself to pay visits to
+places which he had not seen, and so long as they could not convict him
+of traversing the same path twice, or revisiting a point already seen, he
+could perceive no harm in his plan.  As to Rome, he cared less to go
+there, inasmuch as everybody went there; and he said that he never had a
+lacquey who could not tell him all about Florence or Ferrara.  He also
+would say that he seemed to himself like those who are reading some
+pleasant story or some fine book, of which they fear to come to the end:
+he felt so much pleasure in travelling that he dreaded the moment of
+arrival at the place where they were to stop for the night.
+
+We see that Montaigne travelled, just as he wrote, completely at his
+ease, and without the least constraint, turning, just as he fancied, from
+the common or ordinary roads taken by tourists.  The good inns, the soft
+beds, the fine views, attracted his notice at every point, and in his
+observations on men and things he confines himself chiefly to the
+practical side.  The consideration of his health was constantly before
+him, and it was in consequence of this that, while at Venice, which
+disappointed him, he took occasion to note, for the benefit of readers,
+that he had an attack of colic, and that he evacuated two large stones
+after supper.  On quitting Venice, he went in succession to Ferrara,
+Rovigo, Padua, Bologna (where he had a stomach-ache), Florence, &c.; and
+everywhere, before alighting, he made it a rule to send some of his
+servants to ascertain where the best accommodation was to be had.  He
+pronounced the Florentine women the finest in the world, but had not an
+equally good opinion of the food, which was less plentiful than in
+Germany, and not so well served.  He lets us understand that in Italy
+they send up dishes without dressing, but in Germany they were much
+better seasoned, and served with a variety of sauces and gravies.  He
+remarked further, that the glasses were singularly small and the wines
+insipid.
+
+After dining with the Grand-Duke of Florence, Montaigne passed rapidly
+over the intermediate country, which had no fascination for him, and
+arrived at Rome on the last day of November, entering by the Porta del
+Popolo, and putting up at Bear.  But he afterwards hired, at twenty
+crowns a month, fine furnished rooms in the house of a Spaniard, who
+included in these terms the use of the kitchen fire.  What most annoyed
+him in the Eternal City was the number of Frenchmen he met, who all
+saluted him in his native tongue; but otherwise he was very comfortable,
+and his stay extended to five months.  A mind like his, full of grand
+classical reflections, could not fail to be profoundly impressed in the
+presence of the ruins at Rome, and he has enshrined in a magnificent
+passage of the Journal the feelings of the moment: "He said," writes his
+secretary, "that at Rome one saw nothing but the sky under which she had
+been built, and the outline of her site: that the knowledge we had of her
+was abstract, contemplative, not palpable to the actual senses: that
+those who said they beheld at least the ruins of Rome, went too far, for
+the ruins of so gigantic a structure must have commanded greater
+reverence-it was nothing but her sepulchre.  The world, jealous of her,
+prolonged empire, had in the first place broken to pieces that admirable
+body, and then, when they perceived that the remains attracted worship
+and awe, had buried the very wreck itself.--[Compare a passage in one
+of Horace Walpole's letters to Richard West, 22 March 1740 (Cunningham's
+edit.  i.  41), where Walpole, speaking of Rome, describes her very ruins
+as ruined.]--As to those small fragments which were still to be seen on
+the surface, notwithstanding the assaults of time and all other attacks,
+again and again repeated, they had been favoured by fortune to be some
+slight evidence of that infinite grandeur which nothing could entirely
+extingish.  But it was likely that these disfigured remains were the
+least entitled to attention, and that the enemies of that immortal
+renown, in their fury, had addressed themselves in the first instance to
+the destruction of what was most beautiful and worthiest of preservation;
+and that the buildings of this bastard Rome, raised upon the ancient
+productions, although they might excite the admiration of the present
+age, reminded him of the crows' and sparrows' nests built in the walls
+and arches of the old churches, destroyed by the Huguenots.  Again, he
+was apprehensive, seeing the space which this grave occupied, that the
+whole might not have been recovered, and that the burial itself had been
+buried.  And, moreover, to see a wretched heap of rubbish, as pieces of
+tile and pottery, grow (as it had ages since) to a height equal to that
+of Mount Gurson,--[In Perigord.]--and thrice the width of it, appeared to
+show a conspiracy of destiny against the glory and pre-eminence of that
+city, affording at the same time a novel and extraordinary proof of its
+departed greatness.  He (Montaigne) observed that it was difficult to
+believe considering the limited area taken up by any of her seven hills
+and particularly the two most favoured ones, the Capitoline and the
+Palatine, that so many buildings stood on the site.  Judging only from
+what is left of the Temple of Concord, along the 'Forum Romanum', of
+which the fall seems quite recent, like that of some huge mountain split
+into horrible crags, it does not look as if more than two such edifices
+could have found room on the Capitoline, on which there were at one
+period from five-and-twenty to thirty temples, besides private dwellings.
+But, in point of fact, there is scarcely any probability of the views
+which we take of the city being correct, its plan and form having changed
+infinitely; for instance, the 'Velabrum', which on account of its
+depressed level, received the sewage of the city, and had a lake, has
+been raised by artificial accumulation to a height with the other hills,
+and Mount Savello has, in truth, grown simply out of the ruins of the
+theatre of Marcellus.  He believed that an ancient Roman would not
+recognise the place again.  It often happened that in digging down into
+earth the workmen came upon the crown of some lofty column, which, though
+thus buried, was still standing upright.  The people there have no
+recourse to other foundations than the vaults and arches of the old
+houses, upon which, as on slabs of rock, they raise their modern palaces.
+It is easy to see that several of the ancient streets are thirty feet
+below those at present in use."
+
+Sceptical as Montaigne shows himself in his books, yet during his sojourn
+at Rome he manifested a great regard for religion.  He solicited the
+honour of being admitted to kiss the feet of the Holy Father, Gregory
+XIII.; and the Pontiff exhorted him always to continue in the devotion
+which he had hitherto exhibited to the Church and the service of the Most
+Christian King.
+
+"After this, one sees," says the editor of the Journal, "Montaigne
+employing all his time in making excursions bout the neighbourhood on
+horseback or on foot, in visits, in observations of every kind.  The
+churches, the stations, the processions even, the sermons; then the
+palaces, the vineyards, the gardens, the public amusements, as the
+Carnival, &c.--nothing was overlooked.  He saw a Jewish child
+circumcised, and wrote down a most minute account of the operation.  He
+met at San Sisto a Muscovite ambassador, the second who had come to Rome
+since the pontificate of Paul III.  This minister had despatches from his
+court for Venice, addressed to the 'Grand Governor of the Signory'.  The
+court of Muscovy had at that time such limited relations with the other
+powers of Europe, and it was so imperfect in its information, that it
+thought Venice to be a dependency of the Holy See."
+
+Of all the particulars with which he has furnished us during his stay at
+Rome, the following passage in reference to the Essays is not the least
+singular: "The Master of the Sacred Palace returned him his Essays,
+castigated in accordance with the views of the learned monks.  'He had
+only been able to form a judgment of them,' said he, 'through a certain
+French monk, not understanding French himself'"--we leave Montaigne
+himself to tell the story--"and he received so complacently my excuses
+and explanations on each of the passages which had been animadverted upon
+by the French monk, that he concluded by leaving me at liberty to revise
+the text agreeably to the dictates of my own conscience.  I begged him,
+on the contrary, to abide by the opinion of the person who had criticised
+me, confessing, among other matters, as, for example, in my use of the
+word fortune, in quoting historical poets, in my apology for Julian, in
+my animadversion on the theory that he who prayed ought to be exempt from
+vicious inclinations for the time being; item, in my estimate of cruelty,
+as something beyond simple death; item, in my view that a child ought to
+be brought up to do everything, and so on; that these were my opinions,
+which I did not think wrong; as to other things, I said that the
+corrector understood not my meaning.  The Master, who is a clever man,
+made many excuses for me, and gave me to suppose that he did not concur
+in the suggested improvements; and pleaded very ingeniously for me in my
+presence against another (also an Italian) who opposed my sentiments."
+
+Such is what passed between Montaigne and these two personages at that
+time; but when the Essayist was leaving, and went to bid them farewell,
+they used very different language to him.  "They prayed me," says he,
+"to pay no attention to the censure passed on my book, in which other
+French persons had apprised them that there were many foolish things;
+adding, that they honoured my affectionate intention towards the Church,
+and my capacity; and had so high an opinion of my candour and
+conscientiousness that they should leave it to me to make such
+alterations as were proper in the book, when I reprinted it; among other
+things, the word fortune.  To excuse themselves for what they had said
+against my book, they instanced works of our time by cardinals and other
+divines of excellent repute which had been blamed for similar faults,
+which in no way affected reputation of the author, or of the publication
+as a whole; they requested me to lend the Church the support of my
+eloquence (this was their fair speech), and to make longer stay in the
+place, where I should be free from all further intrusion on their part.
+It seemed to me that we parted very good friends."
+
+Before quitting Rome, Montaigne received his diploma of citizenship, by
+which he was greatly flattered; and after a visit to Tivoli he set out
+for Loretto, stopping at Ancona, Fano, and Urbino.  He arrived at the
+beginning of May 1581, at Bagno della Villa, where he established
+himself, order to try the waters.  There, we find in the Journal, of his
+own accord the Essayist lived in the strictest conformity with the
+regime, and henceforth we only hear of diet, the effect which the waters
+had by degrees upon system, of the manner in which he took them; in a
+word, he does not omit an item of the circumstances connected with his
+daily routine, his habit of body, his baths, and the rest.  It was no
+longer the journal of a traveller which he kept, but the diary of an
+invalid,--["I am reading Montaigne's Travels, which have lately been
+found; there is little in them but the baths and medicines he took, and
+what he had everywhere for dinner."--H.  Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, June
+8, 1774.]--attentive to the minutest details of the cure which he was
+endeavouring to accomplish: a sort of memorandum book, in which he was
+noting down everything that he felt and did, for the benefit of his
+medical man at home, who would have the care of his health on his return,
+and the attendance on his subsequent infirmities.  Montaigne gives it as
+his reason and justification for enlarging to this extent here, that he
+had omitted, to his regret, to do so in his visits to other baths, which
+might have saved him the trouble of writing at such great length now; but
+it is perhaps a better reason in our eyes, that what he wrote he wrote
+for his own use.
+
+We find in these accounts, however, many touches which are valuable as
+illustrating the manners of the place.  The greater part of the entries
+in the Journal, giving the account of these waters, and of the travels,
+down to Montaigne's arrival at the first French town on his homeward
+route, are in Italian, because he wished to exercise himself in that
+language.
+
+The minute and constant watchfulness of Montaigne over his health and
+over himself might lead one to suspect that excessive fear of death which
+degenerates into cowardice.  But was it not rather the fear of the
+operation for the stone, at that time really formidable?  Or perhaps he
+was of the same way of thinking with the Greek poet, of whom Cicero
+reports this saying: "I do not desire to die; but the thought of being
+dead is indifferent to me."  Let us hear, however, what he says himself
+on this point very frankly: "It would be too weak and unmanly on my part
+if, certain as I am of always finding myself in the position of having to
+succumb in that way,--[To the stone or gravel.]--and death coming nearer
+and nearer to me, I did not make some effort, before the time came, to
+bear the trial with fortitude.  For reason prescribes that we should
+joyfully accept what it may please God to send us.  Therefore the only
+remedy, the only rule, and the sole doctrine for avoiding the evils by
+which mankind is surrounded, whatever they are, is to resolve to bear
+them so far as our nature permits, or to put an end to them courageously
+and promptly."
+
+He was still at the waters of La Villa, when, on the 7th September 1581,
+he learned by letter that he had been elected Mayor of Bordeaux on the
+1st August preceding.  This intelligence made him hasten his departure;
+and from Lucca he proceeded to Rome.  He again made some stay in that
+city, and he there received the letter of the jurats of Bordeaux,
+notifying to him officially his election to the Mayoralty, and inviting
+him to return as speedily as possible.  He left for France, accompanied
+by young D'Estissac and several other gentlemen, who escorted him a
+considerable distance; but none went back to France with him, not even
+his travelling companion.  He passed by Padua, Milan, Mont Cenis, and
+Chambery; thence he went on to Lyons, and lost no time in repairing to
+his chateau, after an absence of seventeen months and eight days.
+
+We have just seen that, during his absence in Italy, the author of the
+Essays was elected mayor of Bordeaux.  "The gentlemen of Bordeaux," says
+he, "elected me Mayor of their town while I was at a distance from
+France, and far from the thought of such a thing.  I excused myself; but
+they gave to understand that I was wrong in so doing, it being also the
+command of the king that I should stand."  This the letter which Henry
+III. wrote to him on the occasion:
+
+MONSIEUR, DE MONTAIGNE,--Inasmuch as I hold in great esteem your fidelity
+and zealous devotion to my service, it has been a pleasure to me to learn
+that you have been chosen mayor of my town of Bordeaux.  I have had the
+agreeable duty of confirming the selection, and I did so the more
+willingly, seeing that it was made during your distant absence; wherefore
+it is my desire, and I require and command you expressly that you proceed
+without delay to enter on the duties to which you have received so
+legitimate a call.  And so you will act in a manner very agreeable to me,
+while the contrary will displease me greatly.  Praying God, M. de
+Montaigne, to have you in his holy keeping.
+
+"Written at Paris, the 25th day of November 1581.
+
+"HENRI.
+
+"A Monsieur de MONTAIGNE,
+Knight of my Order, Gentleman in Ordinary of my
+Chamber, being at present in Rome."
+
+Montaigne, in his new employment, the most important in the province,
+obeyed the axiom, that a man may not refuse a duty, though it absorb his
+time and attention, and even involve the sacrifice of his blood.  Placed
+between two extreme parties, ever on the point of getting to blows, he
+showed himself in practice what he is in his book, the friend of a middle
+and temperate policy.  Tolerant by character and on principle, he
+belonged, like all the great minds of the sixteenth century, to that
+political sect which sought to improve, without destroying, institutions;
+and we may say of him, what he himself said of La Boetie, "that he had
+that maxim indelibly impressed on his mind, to obey and submit himself
+religiously to the laws under which he was born.  Affectionately attached
+to the repose of his country, an enemy to changes and innovations, he
+would have preferred to employ what means he had towards their
+discouragement and suppression, than in promoting their success."  Such
+was the platform of his administration.
+
+He applied himself, in an especial manner, to the maintenance of peace
+between the two religious factions which at that time divided the town of
+Bordeaux; and at the end of his two first years of office, his grateful
+fellow-citizens conferred on him (in 1583) the mayoralty for two years
+more, a distinction which had been enjoyed, as he tells us, only twice
+before.  On the expiration of his official career, after four years'
+duration, he could say fairly enough of himself that he left behind him
+neither hatred nor cause of offence.
+
+In the midst of the cares of government, Montaigne found time to revise
+and enlarge his Essays, which, since their appearance in 1580, were
+continually receiving augmentation in the form of additional chapters or
+papers.  Two more editions were printed in 1582 and 1587; and during this
+time the author, while making alterations in the original text, had
+composed part of the Third Book.  He went to Paris to make arrangements
+for the publication of his enlarged labours, and a fourth impression in
+1588 was the result.  He remained in the capital some time on this
+occasion, and it was now that he met for the first time Mademoiselle de
+Gournay.  Gifted with an active and inquiring spirit, and, above all,
+possessing a sound and healthy tone of mind, Mademoiselle de Gournay had
+been carried from her childhood with that tide which set in with
+sixteenth century towards controversy, learning, and knowledge.  She
+learnt Latin without a master; and when, the age of eighteen, she
+accidentally became possessor of a copy of the Essays, she was
+transported with delight and admiration.
+
+She quitted the chateau of Gournay, to come and see him.  We cannot do
+better, in connection with this journey of sympathy, than to repeat the
+words of Pasquier: "That young lady, allied to several great and noble
+families of Paris, proposed to herself no other marriage than with her
+honour, enriched with the knowledge gained from good books, and, beyond
+all others, from the essays of M. de Montaigne, who making in the year
+1588 a lengthened stay in the town of Paris, she went there for the
+purpose of forming his personal acquaintance; and her mother, Madame de
+Gournay, and herself took him back with them to their chateau, where, at
+two or three different times, he spent three months altogether, most
+welcome of visitors."  It was from this moment that Mademoiselle de
+Gournay dated her adoption as Montaigne's daughter, a circumstance which
+has tended to confer immortality upon her in a far greater measure than
+her own literary productions.
+
+Montaigne, on leaving Paris, stayed a short time at Blois, to attend the
+meeting of the States-General.  We do not know what part he took in that
+assembly: but it is known that he was commissioned, about this period, to
+negotiate between Henry of Navarre (afterwards Henry IV.) and the Duke of
+Guise.  His political life is almost a blank; but De Thou assures us that
+Montaigne enjoyed the confidence of the principal persons of his time.
+De Thou, who calls him a frank man without constraint, tells us that,
+walking with him and Pasquier in the court at the Castle of Blois, he
+heard him pronounce some very remarkable opinions on contemporary events,
+and he adds that Montaigne had foreseen that the troubles in France could
+not end without witnessing the death of either the King of Navarre or of
+the Duke of Guise.  He had made himself so completely master of the views
+of these two princes, that he told De Thou that the King of Navarre would
+have been prepared to embrace Catholicism, if he had not been afraid of
+being abandoned by his party, and that the Duke of Guise, on his part,
+had no particular repugnance to the Confession of Augsburg, for which the
+Cardinal of Lorraine, his uncle, had inspired him with a liking, if it
+had not been for the peril involved in quitting the Romish communion.  It
+would have been easy for Montaigne to play, as we call it, a great part
+in politics, and create for himself a lofty position but his motto was,
+'Otio et Libertati'; and he returned quietly home to compose a chapter
+for his next edition on inconveniences of Greatness.
+
+The author of the Essays was now fifty-five.  The malady which tormented
+him grew only worse and worse with years; and yet he occupied himself
+continually with reading, meditating, and composition.  He employed the
+years 1589, 1590, and 1591 in making fresh additions to his book; and
+even in the approaches of old age he might fairly anticipate many happy
+hours, when he was attacked by quinsy, depriving him of the power
+utterance.  Pasquier, who has left us some details  his last hours,
+narrates that he remained three days in full possession of his faculties,
+but unable to speak, so that, in order to make known his desires, he was
+obliged to resort to writing; and as he felt his end drawing near, he
+begged his wife to summon certain of the gentlemen who lived in the
+neighbourhood to bid them a last farewell.  When they had arrived, he
+caused mass to be celebrated in apartment; and just as the priest was
+elevating the host, Montaigne fell forward with his arms extended in
+front of him, on the bed, and so expired.  He was in his sixtieth year.
+It was the 13th September 1592.
+
+Montaigne was buried near his own house; but a few years after his
+decease, his remains were removed to the church of a Commandery of St.
+Antoine at Bordeaux, where they still continue.  His monument was
+restored in 1803 by a descendant.  It was seen about 1858 by an English
+traveller (Mr. St.  John).'--["Montaigne the Essayist," by Bayle St.
+John, 1858, 2 vols.  8vo, is one of most delightful books of the kind.]--
+and was then in good preservation.
+
+In 1595 Mademoiselle de Gournay published a new edition of Montaigne's
+Essays, and the first with the latest emendations of the author, from a
+copy presented to her by his widow, and which has not been recovered,
+although it is known to have been in existence some years after the date
+of the impression, made on its authority.
+
+Coldly as Montaigne's literary productions appear to have been received
+by the generation immediately succeeding his own age, his genius grew
+into just appreciation in the seventeenth century, when such great
+spirits arose as La Bruyere, Moliere, La Fontaine, Madame de Sevigne.
+"O," exclaimed the Chatelaine des Rochers, "what capital company he is,
+the dear man!  he is my old friend; and just for the reason that he is
+so, he always seems new.  My God!  how full is that book of sense!"
+Balzac said that he had carried human reason as far and as high as it
+could go, both in politics and in morals.  On the other hand, Malebranche
+and the writers of Port Royal were against him; some reprehended the
+licentiousness of his writings; others their impiety, materialism,
+epicureanism.  Even Pascal, who had carefully read the Essays, and gained
+no small profit by them, did not spare his reproaches.  But Montaigne has
+outlived detraction.  As time has gone on, his admirers and borrowers
+have increased in number, and his Jansenism, which recommended him to the
+eighteenth century, may not be his least recommendation in the
+nineteenth.  Here we have certainly, on the whole, a first-class man, and
+one proof of his masterly genius seems to be, that his merits and his
+beauties are sufficient to induce us to leave out of consideration
+blemishes and faults which would have been fatal to an inferior writer.
+
+
+
+
+
+                       THE LETTERS OF MONTAIGNE.
+
+
+I.
+
+To Monsieur de MONTAIGNE
+
+[This account of the death of La Boetie begins imperfectly.  It first
+appeared in a little volume of Miscellanies in 1571.  See Hazlitt, ubi
+sup.  p.  630.]--....As to his last words, doubtless, if any man can
+give good account of them, it is I, both because, during the whole of his
+sickness he conversed as fully with me as with any one, and also because,
+in consequence of the singular and brotherly friendship which we had
+entertained for each other, I was perfectly acquainted with the
+intentions, opinions, and wishes which he had formed in the course of his
+life, as much so, certainly, as one man can possibly be with those of
+another man; and because I knew them to be elevated, virtuous, full of
+steady resolution, and (after all said) admirable.  I well foresaw that,
+if his illness permitted him to express himself, he would allow nothing
+to fall from him, in such an extremity, that was not replete with good
+example.  I consequently took every care in my power to treasure what was
+said.  True it is, Monseigneur, as my memory is not only in itself very
+short, but in this case affected by the trouble which I have undergone,
+through so heavy and important a loss, that I have forgotten a number of
+things which I should wish to have had known; but those which I recollect
+shall be related to you as exactly as lies in my power.  For to represent
+in full measure his noble career suddenly arrested, to paint to you his
+indomitable courage, in a body worn out and prostrated by pain and the
+assaults of death, I confess, would demand a far better ability than
+mine: because, although, when in former years he discoursed on serious
+and important matters, he handled them in such a manner that it was
+difficult to reproduce exactly what he said, yet his ideas and his words
+at the last seemed to rival each other in serving him.  For I am sure
+that I never knew him give birth to such fine conceptions, or display so
+much eloquence, as in the time of his sickness.  If, Monseigneur, you
+blame me for introducing his more ordinary observations, please to know
+that I do so advisedly; for since they proceeded from him at a season of
+such great trouble, they indicate the perfect tranquillity of his mind
+and thoughts to the last.
+
+On Monday, the 9th day of August 1563, on my return from the Court, I
+sent an invitation to him to come and dine with me.  He returned word
+that he was obliged, but, being indisposed, he would thank me to do him
+the pleasure of spending an hour with him before he started for Medoc.
+Shortly after my dinner I went to him.  He had laid himself down on the
+bed with his clothes on, and he was already, I perceived, much changed.
+He complained of diarrhoea, accompanied by the gripes, and said that he
+had it about him ever since he played with M. d'Escars with nothing but
+his doublet on, and that with him a cold often brought on such attacks.
+I advised him to go as he had proposed, but to stay for the night at
+Germignac, which is only about two leagues from the town.  I gave him
+this advice, because some houses, near to that where he was ping, were
+visited by the plague, about which he was nervous since his return from
+Perigord and the Agenois, here it had been raging; and, besides, horse
+exercise was, from my own experience, beneficial under similar
+circumstances.  He set out, accordingly, with his wife and M.
+Bouillhonnas, his uncle.
+
+Early on the following morning, however, I had intelligence from Madame
+de la Boetie, that in the night he had fresh and violent attack of
+dysentery.  She had called in physician and apothecary, and prayed me to
+lose no time coming, which (after dinner) I did.  He was delighted to see
+me; and when I was going away, under promise to turn the following day,
+he begged me more importunately and affectionately than he was wont to
+do, to give him as such of my company as possible.  I was a little
+affected; yet was about to leave, when Madame de la Boetie, as if she
+foresaw something about to happen, implored me with tears to stay the
+night.  When I consented, he seemed to grow more cheerful.  I returned
+home the next day, and on the Thursday I paid him another visit.  He had
+become worse; and his loss of blood from the dysentery, which reduced his
+strength very much, was largely on the increase.  I quitted his side on
+Friday, but on Saturday I went to him, and found him very weak.  He then
+gave me to understand that his complaint was infectious, and, moreover,
+disagreeable and depressing; and that he, knowing thoroughly my
+constitution, desired that I should content myself with coming to see him
+now and then.  On the contrary, after that I never left his side.
+
+It was only on the Sunday that he began to converse with me on any
+subject beyond the immediate one of his illness, and what the ancient
+doctors thought of it: we had not touched on public affairs, for I found
+at the very outset that he had a dislike to them.
+
+But, on the Sunday, he had a fainting fit; and when he came to himself,
+he told me that everything seemed to him confused, as if in a mist and in
+disorder, and that, nevertheless, this visitation was not unpleasing to
+him.  "Death," I replied, "has no worse sensation, my brother."  "None so
+bad," was his answer.  He had had no regular sleep since the beginning of
+his illness; and as he became worse and worse, he began to turn his
+attention to questions which men commonly occupy themselves with in the
+last extremity, despairing now of getting better, and intimating as much
+to me.  On that day, as he appeared in tolerably good spirits, I took
+occasion to say to him that, in consideration of the singular love I bore
+him, it would become me to take care that his affairs, which he had
+conducted with such rare prudence in his life, should not be neglected at
+present; and that I should regret it if, from want of proper counsel, he
+should leave anything unsettled, not only on account of the loss to his
+family, but also to his good name.
+
+He thanked me for my kindness; and after a little reflection, as if he
+was resolving certain doubts in his own mind, he desired me to summon his
+uncle and his wife by themselves, in order that he might acquaint them
+with his testamentary dispositions.  I told him that this would shock
+them.  "No, no," he answered, "I will cheer them by making out my case to
+be better than it is."  And then he inquired, whether we were not all
+much taken by surprise at his having fainted?  I replied, that it was of
+no importance, being incidental to the complaint from which he suffered.
+"True, my brother," said he; "it would be unimportant, even though it
+should lead to what you most dread."  "For you," I rejoined, "it might be
+a happy thing; but I should be the loser, who would thereby be deprived
+of so great, so wise, and so steadfast a friend, a friend whose place I
+should never see supplied."  "It is very likely you may not," was his
+answer; "and be sure that one thing which makes me somewhat anxious to
+recover, and to delay my journey to that place, whither I am already
+half-way gone, is the thought of the loss both you and that poor man and
+woman there (referring to his uncle and wife) must sustain; for I love
+them with my whole heart, and I feel certain that they will find it very
+hard to lose me.  I should also regret it on account of such as have, in
+my lifetime, valued me, and whose conversation I should like to have
+enjoyed a little longer; and I beseech you, my brother, if I leave the
+world, to carry to them for me an assurance of the esteem I entertained
+for them to the last moment of my existence.  My birth was, moreover,
+scarcely to so little purpose but that, had I lived, I might have done
+some service to the public; but, however this may be, I am prepared to
+submit to the will of God, when it shall please Him to call me, being
+confident of enjoying the tranquillity which you have foretold for me.
+As for you, my friend, I feel sure that you are so wise, that you will
+control your emotions, and submit to His divine ordinance regarding me;
+and I beg of you to see that that good man and woman do not mourn for my
+departure unnecessarily."
+
+He proceeded to inquire how they behaved at present.  "Very well," said
+I, "considering the circumstances."  "Ah!"  he replied, "that is, so long
+as they do not abandon all hope of me; but when that shall be the case,
+you will have a hard task to support them."  It was owing to his strong
+regard for his wife and uncle that he studiously disguised from them his
+own conviction as to the certainty of his end, and he prayed me to do the
+same.  When they were near him he assumed an appearance of gaiety, and
+flattered them with hopes.  I then went to call them.  They came, wearing
+as composed an air as possible; and when we four were together, he
+addressed us, with an untroubled countenance, as follows: "Uncle and
+wife, rest assured that no new attack of my disease, or fresh doubt that
+I have as to my recovery, has led me to take this step of communicating
+to you my intentions, for, thank God, I feel very well and hopeful; but
+taught by observation and experience the instability of all human things,
+and even of the life to which we are so much attached, and which is,
+nevertheless, a mere bubble; and knowing, moreover, that my state of
+health brings me more within the danger of death, I have thought proper
+to settle my worldly affairs, having the benefit of your advice."  Then
+addressing himself more particularly to his uncle, "Good uncle," said he,
+"if I were to rehearse all the obligations under which I lie to you, I am
+sure that I never should make an end.  Let me only say that, wherever I
+have been, and with whomsoever I have conversed, I have represented you
+as doing for me all that a father could do for a son; both in the care
+with which you tended my education, and in the zeal with which you pushed
+me forward into public life, so that my whole existence is a testimony of
+your good offices towards me.  In short, I am indebted for all that I
+have to you, who have been to me as a parent; and therefore I have no
+right to part with anything, unless it be with your approval."
+
+There was a general silence hereupon, and his uncle was prevented from
+replying by tears and sobs.  At last he said that whatever he thought for
+the best would be agreeable to him; and as he intended to make him his
+heir, he was at liberty to dispose of what would be his.
+
+Then he turned to his wife.  "My image," said he (for so he often called
+her, there being some sort of relationship between them), "since I have
+been united to you by marriage, which is one of the most weighty and
+sacred ties imposed on us by God, for the purpose of maintaining human
+society, I have continued to love, cherish, and value you; and I know
+that you have returned my affection, for which I have no sufficient
+acknowledgment.  I beg you to accept such portion of my estate as I
+bequeath to you, and be satisfied with it, though it is very inadequate
+to your desert."
+
+Afterwards he turned to me.  "My brother," he began, "for whom I have so
+entire a love, and whom I selected out of so large a number, thinking to
+revive with you that virtuous and sincere friendship which, owing to the
+degeneracy of the age, has grown to be almost unknown to us, and now
+exists only in certain vestiges of antiquity, I beg of you, as a mark of
+my affection to you, to accept my library: a slender offering, but given
+with a cordial will, and suitable to you, seeing that you are fond of
+learning.  It will be a memorial of your old companion."
+
+Then he addressed all three of us.  He blessed God that in his extremity
+he had the happiness to be surrounded by those whom he held dearest in
+the world, and he looked upon it as a fine spectacle, where four persons
+were together, so unanimous in their feelings, and loving each other for
+each other's sake.  He commended us one to the other; and proceeded thus:
+"My worldly matters being arranged, I must now think of the welfare of my
+soul.  I am a Christian; I am a Catholic.  I have lived one, and I shall
+die one.  Send for a priest; for I wish to conform to this last Christian
+obligation."  He now concluded his discourse, which he had conducted with
+such a firm face and with so distinct an utterance, that whereas, when I
+first entered his room, he was feeble, inarticulate in his speech, his
+pulse low and feverish, and his features pallid, now, by a sort of
+miracle, he appeared to have rallied, and his pulse was so strong that
+for the sake of comparison, I asked him to feel mine.
+
+I felt my heart so oppressed at this moment, that I had not the power to
+make him any answer; but in the course of two or three hours, solicitous
+to keep up his courage, and, likewise, out of the tenderness which I had
+had all my life for his honour and fame, wishing a larger number of
+witnesses to his admirable fortitude, I said to him, how much I was
+ashamed to think that I lacked courage to listen to what he, so great a
+sufferer, had the courage to deliver; that down to the present time I had
+scarcely conceived that God granted us such command over human
+infirmities, and had found a difficulty in crediting the examples I had
+read in histories; but that with such evidence of the thing before my
+eyes, I gave praise to God that it had shown itself in one so excessively
+dear to me, and who loved me so entirely, and that his example would help
+me to act in a similar manner when my turn came.  Interrupting me, he
+begged that it might happen so, and that the conversation which had
+passed between us might not be mere words, but might be impressed deeply
+on our minds, to be put in exercise at the first occasion; and that this
+was the real object and aim of all philosophy.
+
+He then took my hand, and continued: "Brother, friend, there are many
+acts of my life, I think, which have cost me as much difficulty as this
+one is likely to do; and, after all, I have been long prepared for it,
+and have my lesson by heart.  Have I not lived long enough?  I am just
+upon thirty-three.  By the grace of God, my days so far have known
+nothing but health and happiness; but in the ordinary course of our
+unstable human affairs, this could not have lasted much longer; it would
+have become time for me to enter on graver avocations, and I should thus
+have involved myself in numberless vexations, and, among them, the
+troubles of old age, from which I shall now be exempt.  Moreover, it is
+probable that hitherto my life has been spent more simply, and with less
+of evil, than
+if God had spared me, and I had survived to feel the thirst for riches
+and worldly prosperity.  I am sure, for my part, that I now go to God and
+the place of the blessed."  He seemed to detect in my expression some
+inquietude at his words; and he exclaimed, "What, my brother, would you
+make me entertain apprehensions?  Had I any, whom would it become so much
+as yourself to remove them?"
+
+The notary, who had been summoned to draw up his will, came in the
+evening, and when he had the documents prepared, I inquired of La Boetie
+if he would sign them.  "Sign them," cried he; "I will do so with my own
+hand; but I could desire more time, for I feel exceedingly timid and
+weak, and in a manner exhausted."  But when I was going to change the
+conversation, he suddenly rallied, said he had but a short time to live,
+and asked if the notary wrote rapidly, for he should dictate without
+making any pause.  The notary was called, and he dictated his will there
+and then with such speed that the man could scarcely keep up with him;
+and when he had done, he asked me to read it out, saying to me, "What a
+good thing it is to look after what are called our riches."  'Sunt haec,
+quoe hominibus vocantur bona'.  As soon as the will was signed, the
+chamber being full, he asked me if it would hurt him to talk.  I
+answered, that it would not, if he did not speak too loud.  He then
+summoned Mademoiselle de Saint Quentin, his niece, to him, and addressed
+her thus: "Dear niece, since my earliest acquaintance with thee, I have
+observed the marks of, great natural goodness in thee; but the services
+which thou rendered to me, with so much affectionate diligence, in my
+present and last necessity, inspire me with high hopes of thee; and I am
+under great obligations to thee, and give thee most affectionate thanks.
+Let me relieve my conscience by counselling thee to be, in the first
+place, devout, to God: for this doubtless is our first duty, failing
+which all others can be of little advantage or grace, but which, duly
+observed, carries with it necessarily all other virtues.  After God, thou
+shouldest love thy father and mother--thy mother, my sister, whom I
+regard as one of the best and most intelligent of women, and by whom I
+beg of thee to let thy own life be regulated.  Allow not thyself to be
+led away by pleasures; shun, like the plague, the foolish familiarities
+thou seest between some men and women; harmless enough at first, but
+which by insidious degrees corrupt the heart, and thence lead it to
+negligence, and then into the vile slough of vice.  Credit me, the
+greatest safeguard to female chastity is sobriety of demeanour.  I
+beseech and direct that thou often call to mind the friendship which was
+betwixt us; but I do not wish thee to mourn for me too much--an
+injunction which, so far as it is in my power, I lay on all my friends,
+since it might seem that by doing so they felt a jealousy of that blessed
+condition in which I am about to be placed by death.  I assure thee, my
+dear, that if I had the option now of continuing in life or of completing
+the voyage on which I have set out, I should find it very hard to choose.
+Adieu, dear niece."
+
+Mademoiselle d'Arsat, his stepdaughter, was next called.  He said to her:
+"Daughter, you stand in no great need of advice from me, insomuch as you
+have a mother, whom I have ever found most sagacious, and entirely in
+conformity with my own opinions and wishes, and whom I have never found
+faulty; with such a preceptress, you cannot fail to be properly
+instructed.  Do not account it singular that I, with no tie of blood to
+you, am interested in you; for, being the child of one who is so closely
+allied to me, I am necessarily concerned in what concerns you; and
+consequently the affairs of your brother, M. d'Arsat, have ever been
+watched by me with as much care as my own; nor perhaps will it be to your
+disadvantage that you were my step-daughter.  You enjoy sufficient store
+of wealth and beauty; you are a lady of good family; it only remains for
+you to add to these possessions the cultivation of your mind, in which I
+exhort you not to fail.  I do not think necessary to warn you against
+vice, a thing so odious in women, for I would not even suppose that you
+could harbour any inclination for it--nay, I believe that you hold the
+very name in abhorrence.  Dear daughter, farewell."
+
+All in the room were weeping and lamenting; but he held without
+interruption the thread of his discourse, which was pretty long.  But
+when he had done, he directed us all to leave the room, except the women
+attendants, whom he styled his garrison.  But first, calling to him my
+brother, M. de Beauregard, he said to him: "M. de Beauregard, you have
+my best thanks for all the care you have taken of me.  I have now a thing
+which I am very anxious indeed to mention to you, and with your
+permission I will do so."  As my brother gave him encouragement to
+proceed, he added: "I assure you that I never knew any man who engaged in
+the reformation of our Church with greater sincerity, earnestness, and
+single-heartedness than yourself.  I consider that you were led to it by
+observing the vicious character of our prelates, which no doubt much
+requires setting in order, and by imperfections which time has brought
+into our Church.  It is not my desire at present  discourage you from
+this course, for I would have no one act in opposition to his conscience;
+but I wish, having regard to the good repute acquired by your family from
+its enduring concord--a family than which none can be dearer to me; a
+family, thank God!  no member of which has ever been guilty of dishonour-
+-in regard, further, to the will of your good father to whom you owe so
+much, and of your, uncle, I wish you to avoid extreme means; avoid
+harshness and violence: be reconciled with your relatives; do not act
+apart, but unite.  You perceive what disasters our quarrels have brought
+upon this kingdom, and I anticipate still worse mischiefs; and in your
+goodness and wisdom, beware of involving your family in such broils; let
+it continue to enjoy its former reputation and happiness.  M. de
+Beauregard, take what I say in good part, and as a proof of the
+friendship I feel for you.  I postponed till now any communication with
+you on the subject, and perhaps the condition in which you see me address
+you, may cause my advice and opinion to carry greater authority."  My
+brother expressed his thanks to him cordially.
+
+On the Monday morning he had become so ill that he quite despaired of
+himself; and he said to me very pitifully: "Brother, do not you feel pain
+for all the pain I am suffering?  Do you not perceive now that the help
+you give me has no other effect than that of lengthening my suffering?"
+
+Shortly afterwards he fainted, and we all thought him gone; but by the
+application of vinegar and wine he rallied.  But he soon sank, and when
+he heard us in lamentation, he murmured, "O God!  who is it that teases
+me so?  Why did you break the agreeable repose I was enjoying?  I beg of
+you to leave me."  And then, when he caught the sound of my voice, he
+continued: "And art thou, my brother, likewise unwilling to see me at
+peace?  O, how thou robbest me of my repose!"  After a while, he seemed
+to gain more strength, and called for wine, which he relished, and
+declared it to be the finest drink possible.  I, in order to change the
+current of his thoughts, put in, "Surely not; water is the best."  "Ah,
+yes," he returned, "doubtless so;--(Greek phrase)--."  He had now become,
+icy-cold at his extremities, even to his face; a deathly perspiration was
+upon him, and his pulse was scarcely perceptible.
+
+This morning he confessed, but the priest had omitted to bring with him
+the necessary apparatus for celebrating Mass.  On the Tuesday, however,
+M. de la Boetie summoned him to aid him, as he said, in discharging the
+last office of a Christian.   After the conclusion of Mass, he took the
+sacrament; when the priest was about to depart, he said to him:
+"Spiritual father, I implore you humbly, as well as those over whom you
+are set, to pray to the Almighty on my behalf; that, if it be decreed in
+heaven that I am now to end my life, He will take compassion on my soul,
+and pardon me my sins, which are manifold, it not being possible for so
+weak and poor a creature as I to obey completely the will of such a
+Master; or, if He think fit to keep me longer here, that it may please
+Him to release my present extreme anguish, and to direct my footsteps in
+the right path, that I may become a better man than I have been."  He
+paused to recover breath a little; priest was about to go away, he called
+him back and proceeded: "I desire to say, besides, in your hearing this:
+I declare that I was christened and I have lived, and that so I wish to
+die, in the faith which Moses preached in Egypt; which afterwards the
+Patriarchs accepted and professed in Judaea; and which, in the course of
+time, has been transmitted to France and to us."  He seemed desirous of
+adding something more, but he ended with a request to his uncle and me to
+send up prayers for him; "for those are," he said, "the best duties that
+Christians can fulfil one for another."  In the course of talking, his
+shoulder was uncovered, and although a man-servant stood near him, he
+asked his uncle to re-adjust the clothes.  Then, turning his eyes towards
+me, he said, "Ingenui est, cui multum debeas, ei plurimum velle debere."
+
+M. de Belot called in the afternoon to see him, and M. de la Boetie,
+taking his hand, said to him: "I was on the point of discharging my debt,
+but my kind creditor has given me a little further time."  A little while
+after, appearing to wake out of a sort of reverie, he uttered words which
+he had employed once or twice before in the course of his sickness:
+"Ah well, ah well, whenever the hour comes, I await it with pleasure and
+fortitude."  And then, as they were holding his mouth open by force to
+give him a draught, he observed to M. de Belot: "An vivere tanti est?"
+
+As the evening approached, he began perceptibly to sink; and while I
+supped, he sent for me to come, being no more than the shadow of a man,
+or, as he put it himself, 'non homo, sed species hominis'; and he said to
+me with the utmost difficulty: "My brother, my friend, please God I may
+realise the imaginations I have just enjoyed."  Afterwards, having waited
+for some time while he remained silent, and by painful efforts was
+drawing long sighs (for his tongue at this point began to refuse its
+functions), I said, "What are they?"  "Grand, grand!"  he replied.  "I
+have never yet failed," returned I, "to have the honour of hearing your
+conceptions and imaginations communicated to me; will you not now still
+let me enjoy them?"  "I would indeed," he answered; "but, my brother,
+I am not able to do so; they are admirable, infinite, and unspeakable."
+We stopped short there, for he could not go on.  A little before, indeed,
+he had shown a desire to speak to his wife, and had told her, with as gay
+a countenance as he could contrive to assume, that he had a story to tell
+her.  And it seemed as if he was making an attempt to gain utterance;
+but, his strength failing him, he begged a little wine to resuscitate it.
+It was of no avail, for he fainted away suddenly, and was for some time
+insensible.  Having become so near a neighbour to death, and hearing the
+sobs of Mademoiselle de la Boetie, he called her, and said to her thus:
+"My own likeness, you grieve yourself beforehand; will you not have pity
+on me?  take courage.  Assuredly, it costs me more than half the pain I
+endure, to see you suffer; and reasonably so, because the evils which we
+ourselves feel we do not actually ourselves suffer, but it certain
+sentient faculties which God plants in us, that feel them: whereas what
+we feel on account of others, we feel by consequence of a certain
+reasoning process which goes on within our minds.  But I am going away"--
+That he said because his strength was failing him; and fearing that he
+had frightened his wife, he resumed, observing: "I am going to sleep.
+Good night, my wife; go thy way."  This was the last farewell he took of
+her.
+
+After she had left, "My brother," said he to me, "keep near me, if you
+please;" and then feeling the advance of death more pressing and more
+acute, or else the effect of some warm draught which they had made him
+swallow, his voice grew stronger and clearer, and he turned quite with
+violence in his bed, so that all began again to entertain the hope which
+we had lost only upon witnessing his extreme prostration.
+
+At this stage he proceeded, among other things, to pray me again and
+again, in a most affectionate manner, to give him a place; so that I was
+apprehensive that his reason might be impaired, particularly when, on my
+pointing out to him that he was doing himself harm, and that these were
+not of the words of a rational man, he did not yield at first, but
+redoubled his outcry, saying, "My brother, my brother!  dost thou then
+refuse me a place?"  insomuch that he constrained me to demonstrate to
+him that, as he breathed and spoke, and had his physical being, therefore
+he had his place.  "Yes, yes," he responded, "I have; but it is not that
+which I need; and, besides, when all is said, I have no longer any
+existence."  "God," I replied, "will grant you a better one soon."
+"Would it were now, my brother," was his answer.  "It is now three days
+since I have been eager to take my departure."
+
+Being in this extremity, he frequently called me, merely to satisfy him
+that I was at his side.  At length, he composed himself a little to rest,
+which strengthened our hopes; so much so, indeed, that I left the room,
+and went to rejoice thereupon with Mademoiselle de la Boetie.  But, an
+hour or so afterwards, he called me by name once or twice, and then with
+a long sigh expired at three o'clock on Wednesday morning, the 18th
+August 1563, having lived thirty-two years, nine months, and seventeen
+days.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+To Monseigneur, Monseigneur de MONTAIGNE.
+
+[This letter is prefixed to Montaigne's translation of the "Natural
+Theology" of Raymond de Sebonde, printed at Paris in 1569.]
+
+In pursuance of the instructions which you gave me last year in your
+house at Montaigne, Monseigneur, I have put into a French dress, with my
+own hand, Raymond de Sebonde, that great Spanish theologian and
+philosopher; and I have divested him, so far as I could, of that rough
+bearing and barbaric appearance which you saw him wear at first; that, in
+my opinion, he is now qualified to present himself in the best company.
+It is perfectly possible that some fastidious persons will detect in the
+book some trace of Gascon parentage; but it will be so much the more to
+their discredit, that they allowed the task to devolve on one who is
+quite a novice in these things.  It is only right, Monseigneur, that the
+work should come before the world under your auspices, since whatever
+emendations and polish it may have received, are owing to you.  Still I
+see well that, if you think proper to balance accounts with the author,
+you will find yourself much his debtor; for against his excellent and
+religious discourses, his lofty and, so to speak, divine conceptions, you
+will find that you will have to set nothing but words and phraseology; a
+sort of merchandise so ordinary and commonplace, that whoever has the
+most of it, peradventure is the worst off.
+
+Monseigneur, I pray God to grant you a very long and happy life.  From
+Paris, this 18th of June 1568.  Your most humble and most obedient son,
+
+MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+To Monsieur, Monsieur de LANSAC,--[This letter appears to belong to
+1570.]--Knight of the King's Order, Privy Councillor, Sub-controller of
+his Finance, and Captain of the Cent Gardes of his Household.
+
+MONSIEUR,--I send you the OEconomics of Xenophon, put into French by the
+late M. de la Boetie,--[Printed at Paris, 8vo, 1571, and reissued, with
+the addition of some notes, in 1572, with a fresh title-page.]--a present
+which appears to me to be appropriate, as well because it is the work of
+a gentleman of mark,--[Meaning Xenophon.]--a man illustrious in war and
+peace, as because it has taken its second shape from a personage whom I
+know to have been held by you in affectionate regard during his life.
+This will be an inducement to you to continue to cherish towards his
+memory, your good opinion and goodwill.  And to be bold with you,
+Monsieur, do not fear to increase these sentiments somewhat; for, as you
+had knowledge of his high qualities only in his public capacity, it rests
+with me to assure you how many endowments he possessed beyond your
+personal experience of him.  He did me the honour, while he lived, and I
+count it amongst the most fortunate circumstances in my own career, to
+have with me a friendship so close and so intricately knit, that no
+movement, impulse, thought, of his mind was kept from me, and if I have
+not formed a right judgment of him, I must suppose it to be from my own
+want of scope.  Indeed, without exaggeration, he was so nearly a prodigy,
+that I am afraid of not being credited when I speak of him, even though I
+should keep much within the mark of my own actual knowledge.  And for
+this time, Monsieur, I shall content myself with praying you, for the
+honour and respect we owe to truth, to testify and believe that our
+Guienne never beheld his peer among the men of his vocation.  Under the
+hope, therefore, that you will pay him his just due, and in order to
+refresh him in your memory, I present you this book, which will answer
+for me that, were it not for the insufficiency of my power, I would offer
+you as willingly something of my own, as an acknowledgment of the
+obligations I owe to you, and of the ancient favour and friendship which
+you have borne towards the members of our house.  But, Monsieur, in
+default of better coin, I offer you in payment the assurance of my desire
+to do you humble service.
+
+Monsieur, I pray God to have you in His keeping.  Your obedient servant,
+MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+To Monsieur, Monsieur de MESMES, Lord of Roissy and Malassize, Privy
+Councillor to the King.
+
+MONSIEUR,--It is one of the most conspicuous follies committed by men,
+to employ the strength of their understanding in overturning and
+destroying those opinions which are commonly received among us, and which
+afford us satisfaction and content; for while everything beneath heaven
+employs the ways and means placed at its disposal by nature for the
+advancement and commodity of its being, these, in order to appear of a
+more sprightly and enlightened wit, not accepting anything which has not
+been tried and balanced a thousand times with the most subtle reasoning,
+sacrifice their peace of mind to doubt, uneasiness, and feverish
+excitement.  It is not without reason that childhood and simplicity have
+been recommended by holy writ itself.  For my part, I prefer to be quiet
+rather than clever: give me content, even if I am not to be so wide in my
+range.  This is the reason, Monsieur, why, although persons of an
+ingenious turn laugh at our care as to what will happen after our own
+time, for instance, to our souls, which, lodged elsewhere, will lose all
+consciousness of what goes on here below, yet I consider it to be a great
+consolation for the frailty and brevity of life, to reflect that we have
+the power of prolonging it by reputation and fame; and I embrace very
+readily this pleasant and favourable notion original with our being,
+without inquiring too critically how or why it is.  Insomuch that having
+loved, beyond everything, the late M. de la Boetie, the greatest man, in
+my judgment, of our age, I should think myself very negligent of my duty
+if I failed, to the utmost of my power, to prevent such a name as his,
+and a memory so richly meriting remembrance, from falling into oblivion;
+and if I did not use my best endeavour to keep them fresh.  I believe
+that he feels something of what I do on his behalf, and that my services
+touch and rejoice him.  In fact, he lives in my heart so vividly and so
+wholly, that I am loath to believe him committed to the dull ground, or
+altogether cast off from communication with us.  Therefore, Monsieur,
+since every new light I can shed on him and his name, is so much added to
+his second period of existence, and, moreover, since his name is ennobled
+and honoured by the place which receives it, it falls to me not only to
+extend it as widely as I can, but to confide it to the keeping of persons
+of honour and virtue; among whom you hold such a rank, that, to afford
+you the opportunity of receiving this new guest, and giving him good
+entertainment, I decided on presenting to you this little work, not for
+any profit you are likely to derive from it, being well aware that you do
+not need to have Plutarch and his companions interpreted to you--but it
+is possible that Madame de Roissy, reading in it the order of her
+household management and of your happy accord painted to the life, will
+be pleased to see how her own natural inclination has not only reached
+but surpassed the theories of the wisest philosophers, regarding the
+duties and laws of the wedded state.  And, at all events, it will be
+always an honour to me, to be able to do anything which shall be for the
+pleasure of you and yours, on account of the obligation under which I lie
+to serve you.
+
+Monsieur, I pray God to grant you a long and happy life.  From Montaigne,
+this 30th April 1570.  Your humble servant,
+MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+To Monsieur, Monsieur de L'HOSPITAL, Chancellor of France
+
+MONSEIGNEUR,--I am of the opinion that persons such as you, to whom
+fortune and reason have committed the charge of public affairs, are not
+more inquisitive in any point than in ascertaining the character of those
+in office under you; for no society is so poorly furnished, but that, if
+a proper distribution of authority be used, it has persons sufficient for
+the discharge of all official duties; and when this is the case, nothing
+is wanting to make a State perfect in its constitution.  Now, in
+proportion as this is so much to be desired, so it is the more difficult
+of accomplishment, since you cannot have eyes to embrace a multitude so
+large and so widely extended, nor to see to the bottom of hearts, in
+order that you may discover intentions and consciences, matters
+principally to be considered; so that there has never been any
+commonwealth so well organised, in which we might not detect often enough
+defect in such a department or such a choice; and in those systems, where
+ignorance and malice, favouritism, intrigue, and violence govern, if any
+selection happens to be made on the ground of merit and regularity, we
+may doubtless thank Fortune, which, in its capricious movements, has for
+once taken the path of reason.
+
+This consideration, Monseigneur, often consoled me, when I beheld M.
+Etienne de la Boetie, one of the fittest men for high office in France,
+pass his whole life without employment and notice, by his domestic
+hearth, to the singular detriment of the public; for, so far as he was
+concerned, I may assure you, Monseigneur, that he was so rich in those
+treasures which defy fortune, that never was man more satisfied or
+content.  I know, indeed, that he was raised to the dignities connected
+with his neighbourhood--dignities accounted considerable; and I know
+also, that no one ever acquitted himself better of them; and when he died
+at the age of thirty-two, he enjoyed a reputation in that way beyond all
+who had preceded him.
+
+But for all that, it is no reason that a man should be left a common
+soldier, who deserves to become a captain; nor to assign mean functions
+to those who are perfectly equal to the highest.  In truth, his powers
+were badly economised and too sparingly employed; insomuch that, over and
+above his actual work, there was abundant capacity lying idle which might
+have been called into service, both to the public advantage and his own
+private glory.
+
+Therefore, Monseigneur, since he was so indifferent to his own fame (for
+virtue and ambition, unfortunately, seldom lodge together), and since he
+lived in an age when others were too dull or too jealous to witness to
+his character, I have it marvellously at heart that his memory, at all
+events, to which I owe the good offices of a friend, should enjoy the
+recompense of his brave life; and that it should survive in the good
+report of men of honour and virtue.  On this account, sir, I have been
+desirous to bring to light, and present to you, such few Latin verses as
+he left behind.  Different from the builder, who places the most
+attractive, portion of his house towards the street, and to the draper,
+who displays in his window his best goods, that which was most precious
+in my friend, the juice and marrow of his genius, departed with him, and
+there have remained to us but the bark and the leaves.
+
+The exactly regulated movements of his mind, his piety, his virtue, his
+justice, his vivacity, the solidity and soundness of his judgment, the
+loftiness of his ideas, raised so far above the common level, his
+learning, the grace which accompanied his most ordinary actions, the
+tender affection he had for his miserable country, and his supreme and
+sworn detestation of all vice, but principally of that villainous traffic
+which disguises itself under the honourable name of justice, should
+certainly impress all well-disposed persons with a singular love towards
+him, and an extraordinary regret for his loss.  But, sir, I am unable to
+do justice to all these qualities; and of the fruit of his own studies it
+had not entered into his mind to leave any proof to posterity; all that
+remains, is the little which, as a pastime, he did at intervals.
+
+However this may be, I beg you, sir, to receive it kindly; and as our
+judgment of great things is many times formed from lesser things, and as
+even the recreations of illustrious men carry with them, to intelligent
+observers, some honourable traits of their origin, I would have you form
+from this, some knowledge of him, and hence lovingly cherish his name and
+his memory.  In this, sir, you will only reciprocate the high opinion
+which he had of your virtue, and realise what he infinitely desired in
+his lifetime; for there was no one in the world in whose acquaintance and
+friendship he would have been so happy to see himself established, as in
+your own.  But if any man is offended by the freedom which I use with the
+belongings of another, I can tell him that nothing which has been written
+or been laid down, even in the schools of philosophy, respecting the
+sacred duties and rights of friendship, could give an adequate idea of
+the relations which subsisted between this personage and myself.
+
+Moreover, sir, this slender gift, to make two throws of one stone at the
+same time, may likewise serve, if you please, to testify the honour and
+respect which I entertain for your ability and high qualities; for as to
+those gifts which are adventitious and accidental, it is not to my taste
+to take them into account.
+
+Sir, I pray God to grant you a very happy and a very long life.  From
+Montaigne, this 30th of April 1570.--Your humble and obedient servant,
+
+MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE.
+
+
+
+
+To Monsieur, Monsieur de Folx, Privy Councillor, and Ambassador of His
+Majesty to the Signory of Venice.--[ Printed before the 'Vers Francois'
+of Etienne de la Boetie, 8vo, Paris, 1572.]
+
+SIR,--Being on the point of commending to you and to posterity the memory
+of the late Etienne de la Boetie, as well for his extreme virtue as for
+the singular affection which he bore to me, it struck me as an
+indiscretion very serious in its results, and meriting some coercion from
+our laws, the practice which often prevails of robbing virtue of glory,
+its faithful associate, in order to confer it, in accordance with our
+private interests and without discrimination, on the first comer; seeing
+that our two principal guiding reins are reward and punishment, which
+only touch us properly, and as men, through the medium of honour and
+dishonour, forasmuch as these penetrate the mind, and come home to our
+most intimate feelings: just where animals themselves are susceptible,
+more or less, to all other kinds of recompense and corporal chastisement.
+Moreover, it is well to notice that the custom of praising virtue, even
+in those who are no longer with us, impalpable as it is to them, serves
+as a stimulant to the living to imitate their example; just as capital
+sentences are carried out by the law, more for the sake of warning to
+others, than in relation to those who suffer.  Now, commendation and its
+opposite being analogous as regards effects, we cannot easily deny
+the fact, that although the law prohibits one man from slandering the
+reputation of another, it does not prevent us from bestowing reputation
+without cause.  This pernicious licence in respect to the distribution of
+praise, has formerly been confined in its area of operations; and it may
+be the reason why poetry once lost favour with the more judicious.
+However this may be, it cannot be concealed that the vice of falsehood is
+one very unbecoming in gentleman, let it assume what guise it will.
+
+As for that personage of whom I am speaking to you, sir he leads me far
+away indeed from this kind of language; for the danger in his case is
+not, lest I should lend him anything, but that I might take something
+from him; and it is his ill-fortune that, while he has supplied me, so
+far as ever a man could, with just and obvious opportunities for
+commendation, I find myself unable and unqualified to render it to him--
+I, who am his debtor for so many vivid communications, and who alone have
+it in my power to answer for a million of accomplishments, perfections,
+and virtues, latent (thanks to his unkind stars) in so noble a soul.  For
+the nature of things having (I know not how) permitted that truth, fair
+and acceptable--as it may be of itself, is only embraced where there are
+arts of persuasion, to insinuate it into our minds, I see myself so
+wanting, both in authority to support my simple testimony, and in the
+eloquence requisite for lending it value and weight, that I was on the
+eve of relinquishing the task, having nothing of his which would enable
+me to exhibit to the world a proof of his genius and knowledge.
+
+In truth, sir, having been overtaken by his fate in the flower of his
+age, and in the full enjoyment of the most vigorous health, it had been
+his design to publish some day works which would have demonstrated to
+posterity what sort of a man he was; and, peradventure, he was
+indifferent enough to fame, having formed such a plan in his head, to
+proceed no further in it.  But I have come to the conclusion, that it was
+far more excusable in him to bury with him all his rare endowments, than
+it would be on my part to bury also with me the knowledge of them which I
+had acquired from him; and, therefore, having collected with care all the
+remains which I found scattered here and there among his papers, I intend
+to distribute them so as to recommend his memory to as many persons as
+possible, selecting the most suitable and worthy of my acquaintance, and
+those whose testimony might do him greatest honour: such as you, sir, who
+may very possibly have had some knowledge of him during his life, but
+assuredly too slight to discover the perfect extent of his worth.
+Posterity may credit me, if it chooses, when I swear upon my conscience,
+that I knew and saw him to be such as, all things considered, I could
+neither desire nor imagine a genius surpassing his.
+
+I beg you very humbly, sir, not only to take his name under your general
+protection, but also these ten or twelve French stanzas, which lay
+themselves, as of necessity, under shadow of your patronage.  For I will
+not disguise from you, that their publication was deferred, upon the
+appearance of his other writings, under the pretext (as it was alleged
+yonder at Paris) that they were too crude to come to light.  You will
+judge, sir, how much truth there is in this; and since it is thought that
+hereabout nothing can be produced in our own dialect but what is
+barbarous and unpolished, it falls to you, who, besides your rank as the
+first house in Guienne, indeed down from your ancestors, possess every
+other sort of qualification, to establish, not merely by your example,
+but by your authoritative testimony, that such is not always the case:
+the more so that, though 'tis more natural with the Gascons to act than
+talk, yet sometimes they employ the tongue more than the arm, and wit in
+place of valour.
+
+For my own part; sir, it is not in my way to judge of such matters; but I
+have heard persons who are supposed to understand them, say that these
+stanzas are not only worthy to be presented in the market-place, but,
+independently of that, as regards beauty and wealth of invention, they
+are full of marrow and matter as any compositions of the kind, which have
+appeared in our language.  Naturally each workman feels himself more
+strong in some special part his art, and those are to be regarded as most
+fortunate, who lay hands on the noblest, for all the parts essential to
+the construction of any whole are not equally precious.  We find
+elsewhere, perhaps, greater delicacy phrase, greater softness and harmony
+of language; but imaginative grace, and in the store of pointed wit, I do
+not think he has been surpassed; and we should take the account that he
+made these things neither his occupation nor his study, and that he
+scarcely took a pen in his hand more than once a year, as is shown by the
+very slender quantity of his remains.  For you see here, sir, green wood
+and dry, without any sort of selection, all that has come into my
+possession; insomuch that there are among the rest efforts even of his
+boyhood.  In point of fact, he seems to have written them merely to show
+that he was capable of dealing with all subjects: for otherwise,
+thousands of times, in the course of ordinary conversation, I have heard
+things drop from him infinitely more worthy of being admired, infinitely
+more worthy of being preserved.
+
+Such, sir, is what justice and affection, forming in this instance a rare
+conjunction, oblige me to say of this great and good man; and if I have
+at all offended by the freedom which I have taken in addressing myself to
+you on such a subject at such a length, be pleased to recollect that the
+principal result of greatness and eminence is to lay one open to
+importunate appeals on behalf of the rest of the world.  Herewith, after
+desiring you to accept my affectionate devotion to your service,
+I beseech God to vouchsafe you, sir, a fortunate and prolonged life.
+From Montaigne, this 1st of September 1570.--Your obedient servant,
+
+MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE.
+
+
+
+
+
+To Mademoiselle de MONTAIGNE, my Wife.--[Printed as a preface to the
+"Consolation of Plutarch to his Wife," pub.  fished by Montaigne, with
+several other tracts by La Boetie, about 1571.]
+
+MY WIFE,--You understand well that it is not proper for a man of the
+world, according to the rules of this our time, to continue to court and
+caress you; for they say that a sensible person may take a wife indeed,
+but that to espouse her is to act like a fool.  Let them talk; I adhere
+for my part the custom of the good old days; I also wear my hair as it
+used to be then; and, in truth, novelty costs this poor country up to the
+present moment so dear (and I do not know whether we have reached the
+highest pitch yet), that everywhere and in everything I renounce the
+fashion.  Let us live, my wife, you and I, in the old French method.
+Now, you may recollect that the late M. de la Boetie, my brother and
+inseparable companion, gave me, on his death-bed, all his books and
+papers, which have remained ever since the most precious part of my
+effects.  I do not wish to keep them niggardly to myself alone, nor do I
+deserve to have the exclusive use of them; so that I have resolved to
+communicate them to my friends; and because I have none, I believe, more
+particularly intimate you, I send you the Consolatory Letter written by
+Plutarch to his Wife, translated by him into French; regretting much that
+fortune has made it so suitable a present you, and that, having had but
+one child, and that a daughter, long looked for, after four years of your
+married life it was your lot to lose her in the second year of her age.
+But I leave to Plutarch the duty of comforting you, acquainting you with
+your duty herein, begging you to put your faith in him for my sake; for
+he will reveal to you my own ideas, and will express the matter far
+better than I should myself.  Hereupon, my wife, I commend myself very
+heartily to your good will, and pray God to have you in His keeping.
+From Paris, this 10th September 1570.--Your good husband,
+
+MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+To Monsieur DUPUY,--[This is probably the Claude Dupuy, born at Paris in
+1545, and one of the fourteen judges sent into Guienne after the treaty
+of Fleix in 1580.  It was perhaps under these circumstances that
+Montaigne addressed to him the present letter.]--the King's Councillor in
+his Court and Parliament of Paris.
+
+MONSIEUR,--The business of the Sieur de Verres, a prisoner, who is
+extremely well known to me, deserves, in the arrival at a decision,
+the exercise of the clemency natural to you, if, in the public interest,
+you can fairly call it into play.  He has done a thing not only
+excusable, according to the military laws of this age, but necessary and
+(as we are of opinion) commendable.  He committed the act, without doubt,
+unwillingly and under pressure; there is no other passage of his life
+which is open to reproach.  I beseech you, sir, to lend the matter your
+attentive consideration; you will find the character of it as I represent
+it to you.  He is persecuted on this crime, in a way which is far worse
+than the offence itself.  If it is likely to be of use to him, I desire
+to inform you that he is a man brought up in my house, related to several
+respectable families, and a person who, having led an honourable life,
+is my particular friend.  By saving him you lay me under an extreme
+obligation.  I beg you very humbly to regard him as recommended by me,
+and, after kissing your hands, I pray God, sir, to grant you a long and
+happy life.  From Castera, this 23 d of April [1580].  Your affectionate
+servant,
+MONTAIGNE.
+
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+To the Jurats of Bordeaux.--[Published from the original among the
+archives of the town of Bordeaux, M. Gustave Brunet in the Bulletin du
+Bibliophile, July 1839.]
+
+GENTLEMEN,--I trust that the journey of Monsieur de Cursol will be of
+advantage to the town.  Having in hand a case so just and so favourable,
+you did all in your power to put the business in good trim; and matters
+being so well situated, I beg you to excuse my absence for some little
+time longer, and I will abridge my stay so far as the pressure of my
+affairs permits.  I hope that the delay will be short; however, you will
+keep me, if you please, in your good grace, and will command me, if the
+occasion shall arise, in employing me in the public service and in yours.
+Monsieur de Cursol has also written to me and apprised me of his journey.
+I humbly commend myself to you, and pray God, gentlemen, to grant you
+long and happy life.  From Montaigne, this 21st of May 1582.  Your humble
+brother and servant,
+MONTAIGNE.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+To the same.--[The original is among the archives of Toulouse.]
+
+GENTLEMEN,--I have taken my fair share of the satisfaction which you
+announce to me as feeling at the good despatch of your business, as
+reported to you by your deputies, and I regard it as a favourable sign
+that you have made such an auspicious commencement of the year.  I hope
+to join you at the earliest convenient opportunity.  I recommend myself
+very humbly to your gracious consideration, and pray God to grant you,
+gentlemen, a happy and long life.  From Montaigne, this 8th February
+1585.  Your humble brother and servant,
+MONTAIGNE.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+To the same.
+
+GENTLEMEN,--I have here received news of you from M. le Marechal.  I will
+not spare either my life or anything else for your service, and will
+leave it to your judgment whether the assistance I might be able to
+render by my presence at the forthcoming election, would be worth the
+risk I should run by going into the town, seeing the bad state it is in,
+--[This refers to the plague then raging, and which carried off 14,000
+persons at Bordeaux.]--particularly for people coming away from so fine
+an air as this is where I am.  I will draw as near to you on Wednesday as
+I can, that is, to Feuillas, if the malady has not reached that place,
+where, as I write to M. de la Molte, I shall be very pleased to have the
+honour of seeing one of you to take your directions, and relieve myself
+of the credentials which M. le Marechal will give me for you all:
+commending myself hereupon humbly to your good grace, and praying God to
+grant you, gentlemen, long and happy life.  At Libourne, this 30th of
+July 1585.  Your humble servant and brother,
+MONTAIGNE.
+
+
+
+
+XII.--["According to Dr. Payen, this letter belongs to 1588.  Its
+authenticity has been called in question; but wrongly, in our opinion.
+See 'Documents inedits', 1847, p.  12."--Note in 'Essais', ed.  Paris,
+1854, iv.  381.  It does not appear to whom the letter was addressed.]
+
+MONSEIGNEUR,--You have heard of our baggage being taken from us under our
+eyes in the forest of Villebois: then, after a good deal of discussion
+and delay, of the capture being pronounced illegal by the Prince.  We
+dared not, however, proceed on our way, from an uncertainty as to the
+safety of our persons, which should have been clearly expressed on our
+passports.  The League has done this, M. de Barrant and M. de la
+Rochefocault; the storm has burst on me, who had my money in my box.  I
+have recovered none of it, and most of my papers and cash--[The French
+word is hardes, which St. John renders things.  But compare Chambers's
+"Domestic Annals of Scotland," 2d ed.  i.  48.]--remain in their
+possession.  I have not seen the Prince.  Fifty were lost .  .  .  as for
+the Count of Thorigny, he lost some ver plate and a few articles of
+clothing.  He diverged from his route to pay a visit to the mourning
+ladies at Montresor, where are the remains of his two brothers and his
+grandmother, and came to us again in this town, whence we shall resume
+our journey shortly.  The journey to Normandy is postponed.  The King has
+despatched MM. De Bellieure and de la Guiche to M. de Guise to summon him
+to court; we shall be there on Thursday.
+
+From Orleans, this 16th of February, in the morning [1588-9?].--Your very
+humble servant,
+MONTAIGNE.
+
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+To Mademoiselle PAULMIER.--[This letter, at the time of the publication
+of the variorum edition of 1854, appears to have been in private hands.
+See vol.  iv.  p.  382.]
+
+MADEMOISELLE,--My friends know that, from the first moment of our
+acquaintance, I have destined a copy of my book for you; for I feel that
+you have done it much honour.  The courtesy of M. Paulmier would deprive
+me of the pleasure of giving it to you now, for he has obliged me since a
+great deal beyond the worth of my book.  You will accept it then, if you
+please, as having been yours before I owed it to you, and will confer on
+me the favour of loving it, whether for its own sake or for mine; and I
+will keep my debt to M. Paulmier undischarged, that I may requite him, if
+I have at some other time the means of serving him.
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+To the KING, HENRY IV.--[The original is in the French national library,
+in the Dupuy collection.  It was first discovered by M. Achille Jubinal,
+who printed it with a facsimile of the entire autograph, in 1850.  St.
+John gives the date wrongly as the 1st January 1590.]
+
+SIRE, It is to be above the weight and crowd of your great and important
+affairs, to know, as you do, how to lend yourself, and attend to small
+matters in their turn, according to the duty of your royal dignity, which
+exposes you at all times to every description and degree of person and
+employment.  Yet, that your Majesty should have deigned to consider my
+letter, and direct a reply to be made to it, I prefer to owe, less to
+your strong understanding, than to your kindness of heart.  I have always
+looked forward to your enjoyment of your present fortune, and you may
+recollect that, even when I had to make confession of itto my cure, I
+viewed your successes with satisfaction: now, with the greater propriety
+and freedom, I embrace them affectionately.  They serve you where you are
+as positive matters of fact; but they serve us here no less by the fame
+which they diffuse: the echo carries as much weight as the blow.  We
+should not be able to derive from the justice of your cause such powerful
+arguments for the maintenance and reduction of your subjects, as we do
+from the reports of the success of your undertaking; and then I have to
+assure your Majesty, that the recent changes to your advantage, which you
+observe hereabouts, the prosperous issue of your proceedings at Dieppe,
+have opportunely seconded the honest zeal and marvellous prudence of M.
+the Marshal de Matignon, from whom I flatter myself that you do not
+receive day by day accounts of such good and signal services without
+remembering my assurances and expectations.  I look to the next summer,
+not only for fruits which we may eat, but for those to grow out of our
+common tranquillity, and that it will pass over our heads with the same
+even tenor of happiness, dissipating, like its predecessors, all the fine
+promises with which your adversaries sustain the spirits of their
+followers.  The popular inclinations resemble a tidal wave; if the
+current once commences in your favour, it will go on of its own force to
+the end.  I could have desired much that the private gain of the soldiers
+of your army, and the necessity for satisfying them, had not deprived
+you, especially in this principal town, of the glorious credit of treating
+your mutinous subjects, in the midst of victory, with greater clemency
+than their own protectors, and that, as distinguished from a passing and
+usurped repute, you could have shown them to be really your own, by the
+exercise of a protection truly paternal and royal.  In the conduct of
+such affairs as you have in hand, men are obliged to have recourse to
+unusual expedients.  It is always seen that they are surmounted by their
+magnitude and difficulty; it not being found easy to complete the
+conquest by arms and force, the end has been accomplished by clemency and
+generosity, excellent lures to draw men particularly towards the just and
+legitimate side.  If there is to be severity and punishment, let it be
+deferred till success has been assured.  A great conqueror of past times
+boasts that he gave his enemies as great an inducement to love him, as
+his friends.  And here we feel already some effect of the favourable
+impression produced upon our rebellious towns by the contrast between
+their rude treatment, and that of those which are loyal to you.  Desiring
+your Majesty a happiness more tangible and less hazardous, and that you
+may be beloved rather than feared by your people, and believing that your
+welfare and theirs are of necessity knit together, I rejoice to think that
+the progress which you make is one towards more practicable conditions of
+peace, as well as towards victory!
+
+Sire, your letter of the last of November came to my hand only just now,
+when the time which it pleased you to name for meeting you at Tours had
+already passed.  I take it as a singular favour that you should have
+deigned to desire a visit from so useless a person, but one who is wholly
+yours, and more so even by affection than from duty.  You have acted very
+commendably in adapting yourself, in the matter of external forms, to
+your new fortunes; but the preservation of your old affability and
+frankness in private intercourse is entitled to an equal share of praise.
+You have condescended to take thought for my age, no less than for the
+desire which I have to see you, where you may be at rest from these
+laborious agitations.  Will not that be soon at Paris, Sire?  and may
+nothing prevent me from presenting myself there!--Your very humble and
+very obedient servant and subject,
+MONTAIGNE.
+
+From Montaigne, this 18th of January [1590].
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+To the same.--[ This letter is also in the national collection, among the
+Dupuy papers.  It was first printed in the "Journal de l'Instruction
+Publique," 4th November 1846.]
+
+SIRE,--The letter which it pleased your majesty to write to me on the
+20th of July, was not delivered to me till this morning, and found me
+laid up with a very violent tertian ague, a complaint very common in this
+part of the country during the last month.  Sire, I consider myself
+greatly honoured by the receipt of your commands, and I have not omitted
+to communicate to M. the Marshal de Matignon three times most
+emphatically my intention and obligation to proceed to him, and even so
+far as to indicate the route by which I proposed to join him secretly, if
+he thought proper.  Having received no answer, I consider that he has
+weighed the difficulty and risk of the journey to me.  Sire, your Majesty
+dill do me the favour to believe, if you please, that I shall never
+complain of the expense on occasions where I should not hesitate to
+devote my life.  I have never derived any substantial benefit whatever
+from the bounty of kings, which I have neither sought nor merited; nor
+have I had any recompense for the services which I have performed for
+them: whereof your majesty is in part aware.  What I have done for your
+predecessors I shall do still more readily for you.  I am as rich, Sire,
+as I desire to be.  When I shall have exhausted my purse in attendance on
+your Majesty at Paris, I will take the liberty to tell you, and then, if
+you should regard me as worthy of being retained any longer in your
+suite, you will find me more modest in my claims upon you than the
+humblest of your officers.
+
+Sire, I pray God for your prosperity and health.  Your very humble and
+very obedient servant and subject,
+MONTAIGNE.
+
+From Montaigne, this 2d of September [1590].
+
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+To the Governor of Guienne.
+
+MONSEIGNEUR,--I have received this morning your letter, which I have
+communicated to M. de Gourgues, and we have dined together at the house
+of M.[the mayor] of Bourdeaux.  As to the inconvenience of transporting
+the money named in your memorandum, you see how difficult a thing it is
+to provide for; but you may be sure that we shall keep as close a watch
+over it as possible.  I used every exertion to discover the man of whom
+you spoke.  He has not been here; and M. de Bordeaux has shown me a
+letter in which he mentions that he could not come to see the Director of
+Bordeaux, as he intended, having been informed that you mistrust him.
+The letter is of the day before yesterday.  If I could have found him, I
+might perhaps have pursued the gentler course, being uncertain of your
+views; but I entreat you nevertheless to feel no manner of doubt that I
+refuse to carry out any wishes of yours, and that, where your commands
+are concerned, I know no distinction of person or matter.  I hope that
+you have in Guienne many as well affected to you as I am.  They report
+that the Nantes galleys are advancing towards Brouage.  M. the Marshal de
+Biron has not yet left.  Those who were charged to convey the message to
+M. d'Usee say that they cannot find him; and I believe that, if he has
+been here, he is so no longer.  We keep a vigilant eye on our gates and
+guards, and we look after them a little more attentively in your absence,
+which makes me apprehensive, not merely on account of the preservation of
+the town, but likewise for your oven sake, knowing that the enemies of
+the king feel how necessary you are to his service, and how ill we should
+prosper without you.  I am afraid that, in the part where you are, you
+will be overtaken by so many affairs requiring your attention on every
+side, that it will take you a long time and involve great difficulty
+before you have disposed of everything.  If there is any important news,
+I will despatch an express at once, and you may conclude that nothing is
+stirring if you do not hear from me: at the same time begging you to bear
+in mind that movements of this kind are wont to be so sudden and
+unexpected that, if they occur, they will grasp me by the throat, before
+they say a word.  I will do what I can to collect news, and for this
+purpose I will make a point of visiting and seeing men of every shade of
+opinion.  Down to the present time nothing is stirring.  M. de Londel has
+seen me this morning, and we have been arranging for some advances for
+the place, where I shall go to-morrow morning.  Since I began this
+letter, I have learnt from Chartreux that two gentlemen, describing
+themselves as in the service of M. de Guise, and coming from Agen, have
+passed near Chartreux; but I was not able to ascertain which road they
+have taken.  They are expecting you at Agen.  The Sieur de Mauvesin came
+as far as Canteloup, and thence returned, having got some intelligence.
+I am in search of one Captain Rous, to whom .  .  .  wrote, trying to
+draw him into his cause by all sorts of promises.  The rumour of the two
+Nantes galleys ready to descend on Brouage is confirmed as certain; they
+carry two companies of foot.  M. de Mercure is at Nantes.  The Sieur de
+la Courbe said to M. the President Nesmond that M. d'Elbeuf is on this
+side of Angiers, and lodges with his father.  He is drawing towards Lower
+Poictou with 4000 foot and 400 or 500 horse, having been reinforced by
+the troops of M. de Brissac and others, and M. de Mercure is to join him.
+The report goes also that M. du Maine is about to take the command of all
+the forces they have collected in Auvergne, and that he will cross Le
+Foret to advance on Rouergue and us, that is to say, on the King of
+Navarre, against whom all this is being directed.  M. de Lansac is at
+Bourg, and has two war vessels, which remain in attendance on him.  His
+functions are naval.  I tell you what I learn, and mix up together the
+more or less probable hearsay of the town with actual matter of fact,
+that you may be in possession of everything.  I beg you most humbly to
+return directly affairs may allow you to do so, and assure you that,
+meanwhile, we shall not spare our labour, or (if that were necessary) our
+life, to maintain the king's authority throughout.  Monseigneur, I kiss
+your hands very respectfully, and pray God to have you in His keeping.
+From Bordeaux, Wednesday night, 22d May (1590-91).--Your very humble
+servant,
+
+MONTAIGNE.
+
+I have seen no one from the king of Navarre; they say that M. de Biron
+has seen him.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+            THE AUTHOR TO THE READER.--[Omitted by Cotton.]
+
+READER, thou hast here an honest book; it doth at the outset forewarn
+thee that, in contriving the same, I have proposed to myself no other
+than a domestic and private end: I have had no consideration at all
+either to thy service or to my glory.  My powers are not capable of any
+such design.  I have dedicated it to the particular commodity of my
+kinsfolk and friends, so that, having lost me (which they must do
+shortly), they may therein recover some traits of my conditions and
+humours, and by that means preserve more whole, and more life-like, the
+knowledge they had of me.  Had my intention been to seek the world's
+favour, I should surely have adorned myself with borrowed beauties: I
+desire therein to be viewed as I appear in mine own genuine, simple, and
+ordinary manner, without study and artifice: for it is myself I paint.
+My defects are therein to be read to the life, and any imperfections and
+my natural form, so far as public reverence hath permitted me.  If I had
+lived among those nations, which (they say) yet dwell under the sweet
+liberty of nature's primitive laws, I assure thee I would most willingly
+have painted myself quite fully and quite naked.  Thus, reader, myself am
+the matter of my book: there's no reason thou shouldst employ thy leisure
+about so frivolous and vain a subject.   Therefore farewell.
+
+From Montaigne, the 12th June 1580--[So in the edition of 1595; the
+edition of 1588 has 12th June 1588]
+
+
+
+From Montaigne, the 1st March 1580.
+
+     --[See Bonnefon, Montaigne, 1893, p. 254.  The book had been
+     licensed for the press on the 9th May previous.  The edition of 1588
+     has 12th June 1588;]--
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Arts of persuasion, to insinuate it into our minds
+Help: no other effect than that of lengthening my suffering
+Judgment of great things is many times formed from lesser thing
+Option now of continuing in life or of completing the voyage
+Two principal guiding reins are reward and punishment
+Virtue and ambition, unfortunately, seldom lodge together
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V1
+by Michel de Montaigne
+