us good and wife, but learned, and it has obtained it: it has not taught us to follow and embrace virtue and prudence, but has imprinted in us the derivation and etymology of those words: we know how to decline virtue, yet we know not how to love it: if we do not know what prudence is in effect, and by experience, we have it, however, by jargon and by heart. We are not content to know the extraction, kindred, and alliances of our neighbours; we defire, moreover, to have them our friends, and to eftablish a correfpondence and intelligence with them: this education cf ours has taught us definitions, divifions, and partitions of virtue, as fo many furnames and branches of a genealogy, without any 'farther care of establishing any familiarity or intimacy betwixt it and us. Our education has culled out, for our initiary inftruction, not fuch books as contain the foundest and trueft opinions, but thofe that fpeak the beft Greek and Latin; and by their florid words has inftilled into our fancy the vaineft humours of antiquity.

A good education alters the judgment and manners; as it happened to Polemon, a young debauched Greek, who going, by chance, to hear one of Xenocrates's lectures, not only obferved the eloquence and learning of the reader, and not only brought home the knowledge of fome fine matter; but he gained more manifeft and folid profit, which was the fudden change and reformation of his former life. Whoever found fuch an effect of our discipline?

--faciáfne quod olim

Mutatus Polemon, ponas infignia morbi,
Fafciolas, cubital, focalia, potus ut ille
Dicitur ex collo furtim carpfiffe coronas,
Poftquam eft impranfi correptus voce Magistri * ?

Canft thou, like Polemon reclaim'd, remove
Thy foppifh drefs, thofe fymptoms of thy love;
As he when drunk, with garlands round his head,
Chanc'd once to hear the fober Stoic read;

* Hor. lib. ii. Sat, 3. ver. 253, &€.

Afham'd,

Afham'd, he took his garlands off, began
Another course, and grew a fober man?

The manners

of the meaner fort of people more regular than those of the philofophers.

That feems to me to be the leaft contemptible condition of men, which, by its fimplicity, is feated in the lowest degree, and invites us to a more regular conduct. I find the manners. and language of the country people commonly better fuited to the prefcription of true philofophy, than thofe of our philofophers themfelves. *Plus fapit vulgus, quia tantum, quantum opus eft, fapit: "The vulgar are fo "much the wifer, because they only know what is "ncedful for them to know."

The greatest

warriors in Montaigne's

time.

The most remarkable men, as I have judged by outward appearances (for, to judge of them according to my own method, I muft penetrate into them a great deal deeper) for war and military conduct, were the duke of Guife, who died at Orleans, and the late marshal For gownfmen of great ability, and no common virtue, Olivier and De l'Hofpital, chancellors of France.

Strozzy.

For the greatest ability and

worth.

Poefy too, in my opinion, has flourished in this age. We have abundance of very good artists Several good in this clafs, Aurat, Beze, Buchanan, Latin poets. P'Hofpital, Montdore, and Turnebus.

Excellency of the French

As to the French poets, I believe they have raised it to the highest pitch to which it will ever arrive; and, in thofe parts of it wherein Ronfard and Du Bellay excel, I find them little inferior to the ancient perfection.

Adrian Turnebus knew more, and what he did know, better than any man of his time, or long before him.

poets.

Character of
Turnebus.

Of the duke of Alva and the conftable de

The lives of the laft duke of Alva, and of our conftable De Montmorency, were both of them noble, and had many rare refemblances of fortune; but the beauty Montmorecy. and the glory of the death of the last, in

• Lactant. Inftitut. lib. iv.

Gg3

the

the fight of Paris, and of his king, in their service, against his neareft relations, at the head of an army, through his conduct, victorious, and with fword in hand, at so extreme an old age, merits, methinks, to be recorded amongst the most remarkable events of our times as alfo the conftant goodness, sweetness of behaviour, and conscientious facility of monfieur De la Noue, in so great an injuftice of armed parties, (the true fchool of treafon, inhumanity, and robbery) wherein he always kept up the reputation of a great and experienced cap

And of M. De la Noue.

tain.

I have taken a delight to publish, in feveral places, the hopes I have of Mary de Gournay le And of Mary. Jars, my adopted daughter, and cerde Gournay. tainly beloved by me with more than a paternal love, and involved in my folitude and retirement, as one of the beft parts of my own being. I have no regard to any thing in this world but her; and, if a man may prefage from her youth, her foul will, one day, be capable of the nobleft things; and, amongst others, of the perfection of facred friendship, to which we do not read that any of her fex could ever yet arrive : the fincerity and folidity of her manners are already fufficient for it; her affection towards me is more than fuperabundant, and fuch, in fhort, as that there is nothing more to be wifhed, if not that the apprehenfion fhe has of my end, being now five and fifty years old, might

As to the meaning of thefe words, Adopted Daughter, see the article GOURNAY in Bayle's Dictionary; where you will find, that this young lady's opinion of the first Essays of Montaigne gave the occafion for this adoption, long before the ever faw Montaigne. But here I cannot help tranfcribing part of a paffage, which Mr. Bayle quoted from M. Paiquier, in the note A, which contains fome remarkable particulars of this fort of Adoption. "Montaigne, fays Pafquier, having, in 1588, made a "long ftay at Paris, Mademoiselle de Jars came thither, on purpofe to "fee his perfon; and fhe and her mother carried him to their house at "Gournay, where he spent two months in two or three journeys, and "met with as hearty a welcome as he could defire; and, finally, that "this virtuous lady, being informed of Montaigne's death, croffed almoft through the whole kingdom of France, with palports, as well "from her own motive, as by invitation from Montaigne's widow and #daughter, to mix her tears with theirs, whose forrows were boundless.**

not

not fo cruelly afflict her. The judgment fhe made of my firft Effays, being a woman fo young, and in this age, and alone in her own country, and the famous vehemency wherewith the loved, and defired me upon the fole efteem fhe had of me, before the ever faw me, is an accident very worthy of confideration.

Valour is become popular in France.

Other virtues have had little or no credit in this age, but valour is become popular by our civil wars; and in this refpect we have fouls brave, even to perfection, and in fo number, that the choice is impoffible to be made. This is all of extraordinary, and not common, that has hitherto arrived at my knowledge.

great

WELL,

Why Mon-
taigne fpeaks
fo often of
work,

himfelf in this

ELL, but fome one will say to me, "This de"fign of making a man's felf the "fubject of his writing were excufable in "rare and famous men, who, by their reputation, had given others a curiofity to be fully informed of them." It is most true, I confefs it, and know very well, that artificers will scarce lift their eyes from their work to look at an ordinary man, when they will forfake their workhoufes and fhops to ftare at an eminent perfon, when he comes to town it mifbecomes any perfon to give his own character, except he has qualities worthy of imitation, and whofe life and opinions may ferve for a model. The great actions of Cæfar and Xenophon were a juft and folid bafis on which to fix and found their narratives: and it were alfo to be wifhed, that we had the Journals of Alexander the Great, and the Commentaries that Auguftus, Cato, Sylla, Brutus, and others have left of their actions. We love and contemplate the very statues Gg 4

of

of fuch perfonages, both in copper and marble. This remonftrance is very true, but it very little concerns me,

*Non recito cuiquam, nifi amicis, idque rogatus † ;
Non ubivis, coramve quibuflibet: in medio qui
Scripta foro recitant, funt multi, quique lavantes.

I feldom e'er rehearfe, and when I do
"Tis to my friends, and with reluctance too,
Not before every one, and every-where;
We have too many that rehearsers are,

In baths, the forum, and the public square.

}

I do not here form a ftatue to erect in the centre of a city, in the church, or any public quadrangle.

Non equidem boc ftudeo, bullatis ut miki nugis
Pagina turgefcat:

Secreti loquimur ‡.

With pompous trash to fwell the frothy line
Is not, indeed, my friend! what I defign:
Whatever be the fecrets I indite,

To you I trust, to you alone I write.

It is for fome corner of a library, or to entertain a neighbour, a kinfman, or a friend, that has a mind to renew, his acquaintance and familiarity with me in this my picture. Others have been encouraged to speak of themselves, because they found the fubject worthy and rich; I, on the contrary, am the bolder, by reafon my fubject is fo poor and fterile, that I cannot be fufpected of oftentation. I judge freely of the actions of others; I give little of my own to judge of, because of their nothingness I am not fo confcious of any good in myself, as to tell it without blushing. What contentment would it be to me to hear any thus relate to me the manners,

Hor. lib. i. fat. 4. ver. 73, &c.

+ Inftead of coaftus, as Horace has it in the firft verfe, Montaigne bas fubftituted rogatus, which more exactly expreffes his thought.

Perf. fat. v. ver. 19.

faces,