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Book II: 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 thofe 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 of ours has taught us Definitions, Divisions, and Partitions of Virtue, as fo many Surnames and Branches of a Genealogy, without any farther Care of eftablishing 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 those that speak the best 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, did not only obferve the Eloquence and Learning of the Reader, and not only brought home the Knowledge of fome fine Matter; but he gained a 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 Magiftri?

Thus rendered by Mr. CREECH.

Canft thou, like Polemon reclaim'd, remove

Thy foppish Drefs, thofe Symptoms 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. v. 253, .

Afham'd,

The Manners

of the meaner Sort of People. more regular

Afham'd, he took his Garlands off, began Another Course, and grew a fober Man? That feems to me to be the leaft contemptible Condition of Men, which, by its Simplicity, 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 Prescription of true Philofophy, than thofe of our Philofophers themselves. Plus fapit vulgus, quia tantum, quantum opus eft, fapit: The Vulgar are so much. 'the Wifer, because they only know what is needful for them to know.'

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The most remarkable Men, as I have judged by ourward Appearances (for, to judge of them ac- The greatest cording to my own Method, I must pene- Warriors in trate into them a great deal deeper) for War Montaigne's and military Conduct, were the Duke of Time. Guife, who died at Orleans, and the late Marshal Strozzy. For Gownfmen of great Ability, and no For the great common Virtue, Olivier and De l'Hospital, eft Ability and Chancellors of France.

Worth.

Poefy too, in my Opinion, has flourished in this Age of ours. We have Abundance of very good Artists in this Clafs, Aurat, Beze, Buchanan, l'Hofpital, Montdore, and Turnebus.

As to the French Poets, I believe they have 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.

The Lives of the last Duke of Alva, and of our Conftable De Montmorency, were both of them Noble, and had many rare Refemblances of Fortune; but the Beauty and the Glory of the Death of the last, in the Sight

Gg3

Lactant. Inftitut. lib. iv.

Several good
Latin Poets.

raised it to Excellency of the French Poets.

Character of Turnebus.

Of the Duke of Alva and the Conftable De Montmoren

cy.

of

la Noue.

454 of Paris, and of his King, in their Service, against his nearest Relations, at the Head of an Army, through his Conduct, Victorious, and with Sword in Hand, at fo extreme an Old-age, merits, methinks, to be recorded amongst the most remarkable Events of our Times: As also the constant Goodness, Sweetness of BeAnd of M. De haviour, and confcientious Facility of Monfieur De la Noue, in fo great an Injustice of armed Parties, (the true School of Treafon, Inhumanity, and Robbery) wherein he always kept up the Reputation of a great and experienced Captain. I have taken a Delight to publish, in feveral Places, the Hopes I have of Mary de Gournay le Fars, And of Mary de Gournay. my adopted Daughter, and certainly beloved by me with more than a paternal Love, and involved in my Solitude 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 Soul will, one Day, be capable of the nobleft Things; and, amongst others, of the Perfection of the facred Friendship, to which we do not read that any of her Sex could ever yet arrive; the Sincerity and Solidity of her Manners are already fufficient for it; her Affection towards me is more than fuperabundant, and fuch, in short, as that there is nothing more to be wished, if not that the Apprehenfion fhe has of my End, being now Five and fifty Years old, might not so cruelly afflict

As to the Meaning of thefe Words, Adopted Daughter, fee the Article Gournay in Bayle's Dictionary; where you will find, that this young Lady's Opinion of the first Effays of Montaigne gave the Occafion for this Adoption, long before the ever faw Montaigne. But here I can't help tranfcribing Part of a Paffage, which Mr. Bayle quoted from M. Pafquier, in the Note A, which contains fome remarkable Particulars of this Sort of Adoption. Montaigne, fays Pafquier, having, in 1588, made a long Stay at • Paris, Mademoiselle de Jars came thither, on Purpose to fee his Perfon; * and she and her Mother carried him to their Houfe 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 almost thro' the whole Kingdom of France, with Paffports, as well from her own Motive, as by Invitation * from Montaigne's Widow and Daughter, to mix her Tears with theirs, whofe Sorrows were boundless,'

afflict her. The Judgment fhe made of my first Effays, being a Woman fo young, and in this Age, and alone in her own Country, and the famous Vehemency wherewith fhe loved, and defired me upon the fole Efteem she had of me, before she ever faw me, is an Accident very worthy of Confideration.

France.

Other Virtues have had little or no Credit in this Age, but Valour is become popular by our Civil Valour is beWars; and in this Respect we have Souls come popular in brave, even to Perfection, and in fo great Number, that the Choice is impoffible to be made. This is all of extraordinary, and not common, that has hitherto arrived at my Knowledge.

CHA P. XVIII.

Of giving the LYE.

WELL, but fome one will fay to me,

This De

Why Montaigne peaks Jo often of himSelf in this

Work.

fign of making a Man's Self the Subject 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 Workhouses and Shops 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 Cafar and Xenophon were a juft and folid Bafis on which to fix and found their Narratives: And it were also 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 of Gg 4

fuch

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: În medio qui
Scripta foro recitant, funt multi, quique lavantes.
i. e.

I seldom do rehearse, 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 Statue to erect in the Centre of a City, in the Church, or any public Quadrangle.

Non equidem hoc ftudeo, bullatis ut mihi nugis

Pagina turgefcat:

Secreti loquimur ";

i. e.

With pompous Trash to fwell the frothy Line
Is not, indeed, my Friend! what I design :
Whatever be the Secrets I indite,

To you I trust, to you alone I write.

'Tis for fome Corner of a Library, or to entertain a Neighbour, a Kinsman, 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 Subject worthy and rich; I, on the contrary, am the bolder, by reafon my Subject 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, Faces,

f Hor. lib. i. Sat. 4. v. 73, &c.

Inftead of coactus, as Horace has it in the first Verfe, Montaigne has fubftituted rogatus, which more exactly expreffes his Thought,

Perf. Sat. v. v. 19:

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