THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

THE LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIX

rj08 ANGBLES

THE WORKS OF

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

With Notes, Life and I^etters

Complete in Ten Volumes

i'||''''''''''''"ii'iWii'i''''''^'^^^^^^^ " 'i"'iiifi

EMERSON EDITION

Ten Hundred and Fifty Copies have been printed

Number

42S

ESSAYS OF

M 'IE

TBAN8L

CHABLES

BsnssD rr WILLIAM CARE^

rOLTJl^

OBC

11 t ' r

ESSAYS OF

MONTAIGNE

TRANSLATED BY

CHARLES COTTON

REVISED BY

WILLIAM CAREW HAZLETT

VOLUME SIX

New York

EDWIN C. HILL

MCMX

Copyright 1010 BT EDWIN C. HILL

College Library

PQ

CONTENTS 19 iO V. (o

PAGE

How our Mind Hinders Itself 11

That our Desires are Augmented by Difficulty 13

Of Glory 25

Of Presumption 53

Of Giving the Lie 119

Of Liberty of Conscience 128

We Taste Nothing Pure 137

Against Idleness 143

Of Posting 152

Of 111 Means Employed to a Good End 155

Of the Roman Greatness 162

Not to Counterfeit the Sick Man 165

Of Thumbs 170

Cowardice the Mother of Cruelty 172

All Things have their Season 192

Of Virtue 196

Of a Monstrous Child 212

Of Anger 215

Defence of Seneca and Plutarch 230

The Story of Spumia 244

Volume VI

1005772

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Hector Reproaching Paris. From Painting by Diogene-Ulysse-Na- poleon-Maillart Frontispiece

Offering to Minerva. From Paint- ing by H. De Gaudemaris Page 50

Andromache in Captivity. From Painting by Sir Frederick Leigh- ton " 172

Cleopatra, From Painting by H.

Makart " 246

Volume VI

ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE

HOW OUE MIND HINDERS ITSELF

*TIS A pleasant imagination to fancy a mind exactly balanced betwixt two equal desires: for, doubtless, it can never pitch upon either, forasmuch as the choice and application would manifest an inequality of esteem; and were we set betwixt the bottle and the ham, with an equal appetite to drink and eat, there would doubtless be no remedy but we must die of thirst and hunger. To provide against this inconvenience, the Stoics, when they are asked whence the election in the soul of two indifferent things proceeds, and that makes us, out of a great number of crowns, rather take one than another, they being all alike, and there being no reason to incline us to such a preference, make answer, that this movement of the soul is extraordinary and irregular, entering into us by a foreign, acci- dental, and fortuitous impulse. It might rather, methinks, be said, that nothing pre- sents itself to us wherein there is not some

11

12 MONTAIGNE

difference, how little soever; and that, either by the sight or touch, there is always some choice that, though it be imperceptibly, tempts and attracts us ; so, whoever shall pre- suppose a packthread equally strong through- out, it is utterly impossible it should break; for, where will you have the breaking to begin? and that it should break altogether is not in nature. Whoever, also, should hereunto join the geometrical propositions that, by the certainty of their demonstra- tions, conclude the contained to be greater than the containing, the centre to be as great as its circumference, and that find out two lines incessantly approaching each other, which yet can never meet, and the philoso- pher's stone, and the quadrature of the circle, where the reason and the effect are so op- posite, might, peradventure, find some argu- ment to second this bold saying of Pliny: —

**It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing is more miserable or more proud than man/'

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THAT OUE DESIRES ARE AUGMENTED BY DIFFICULTY

THERE IS no reason that has not its con- trary, say the wisest of the philosophers. I was just now ruminating on the excellent say- ing one of the ancients alleges for the con- tempt of life: "No good can bring pleasure, unless it be that for the loss of which we are beforehand prepared-:" —

"The grief of losing a thing, and the fear of losing it, are equal,"

meaning by this that the fruition of life can- not be truly pleasant to us if we are in fear of losing it. It might, however, be said, on the contrary, that we hug and embrace this good so much the more earnestly, and with so much greater affection, by how much we see it the less assured and fear to have taken it from us: for it is evident, as fire bums with greater fury when cold comes to mix with it, that our will is more obstinate by being opposed: —

"If a brazen tower had not held Danae, you would not, Danae, have been made a mother by Jove;"

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and that there is nothing naturally so con- trary to our taste as satiety which proceeds from facility; nor anything that so much whets it as rarity and difficulty: —

"The pleasure of all things increases by the same danger that should deter it/'

**Galla, refuse me; love is glutted with joys that are not attended with trouble.'*

To keep love in breath, Lycurgus made a decree that the married people of Lacedae- mon should never enjoy one another but by stealth; and that it should be as great a shame to take them in bed together as com- mitting with others. The difficulty of as- signations, the danger of surprise, the shame of the morning: —

**And langor, and silence, and sighs, com- ing from the innermost heart:"

M

these are what give the piquancy to the sauce, How many very wantonly pleasant sports spring from the most decent and modest language of the works on love? Pleasure itself seeks to be heightened with

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pain; it is much sweeter when it smarts and has the skin rippled. The courtesan Flora said she never lay with Pompey but that she made him wear the prints of her teeth: —

''What they have sought they press closely, and cause pain; on the lips fix the teeth, and every kiss indents : urged by latent stimulus the part to wound.'*

And so it is in everything: difficulty gives all things their estimation; the people of the March of Ancona more readily make their vows to St. James, and those of Galicia to Our Lady of Loreto; they make wonderful to-do at Liege about the baths of Lucca, and in Tuscany about those of Aspa: there are few Eomans seen in the fencing school of Rome, which is full of French. That great Cato also, as much as us, nauseated his wife whilst she was his, and longed for her when in the possession of another. I was fain to turn out into the paddock an old horse, as he was not to be governed when he smelt a mare: the facility presently sated him as towards his own, but towards strange mares, and the first that passed by the pale of his

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pasture, he would again fall to his importu- nate neighings and his furious heats as be- fore. Our appetite contemns and passes by what it has in possession, to run after that it has not: —

**He slights her who is close at hand, and runs after her who flees from him.'*

To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't: —

** Unless you begin to guard your mistress, she will soon begin to be no longer mine;"

to give it wholly up to us is to beget in us contempt. Want and abundance fall into the same inconvenience: —

"Your superfluities trouble you, and what I want troubles me."

Desire and fruition equally afflict us. The rigors of mistresses are troublesome, but facility, to say truth, still more so ; forasmuch as discontent and anger spring from the esteem we have of the thing desired, heat and actuate love, but satiety begets disgust;

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*tis a blunt, dull, stupid, tired, and slothful passion : —

"She who would long retain her power must use her lover ill."

''Slight your mistresses; she will to-day- come who denied you yesterday."

Why did Poppea invent the use of a mask to hide the beauties of her face, but to en- hance it to her lovers? Why have they veiled, even below the heels, those beauties that every one desires to show, and that every one desires to see? Why do they cover with so many hindrances, one over another, the parts where our desires and their own have their principal seat? And to what serve those great bastion farthingales, with which our ladies fortify their haunches, but to allure our appetite and to draw us on by removing them farther from us? —

*'She flies to the osiers, and desires before- hand to be seen going."

''The hidden robe has sometimes checked love."

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To what use serves the artifice of this virgin modesty, this grave coldness, this severe countenance, this professing to be ignorant of things that they know better than we who instruct them in them, but to increase in us the desire to overcome, con- trol, and trample underfoot at pleasure all this ceremony and all these obstacles? For there is not only pleasure, but, moreover, glory, in conquering and' debauching that soft sweetness and that childish modesty, and to reduce a cold and matron-like gravity to the mercy of our ardent desires: *tis a glory, say they, to triumph over modesty, chastity, and temperance; and whoever dissuades ladies from those qualities, betrays both them and himself. We are to believe that their hearts tremble with affright, and the very sound of our words offends the purity of their ears, that they hate us for talking so, and only yield to our importunity by a compulsive force. Beauty, all powerful as it is, has not wherewithal to make itself relished without the mediation of these little arts. Look into Italy, where there is the most and the finest beauty to be sold, how it is necessitated to

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have recourse to extrinsic means and other artifices to render itself charming, and yet, in truth, whatever it may do, being venal and public, it remains feeble and languish- ing. Even so in virtue itself, of two like effects, we notwithstanding look upon that as the fairest and most worthy, wherein the most trouble and hazard are set before us.

Tis an effect of the divine Providence to suffer the holy Church to be afflicted, as we see it, with so many storms and troubles, by this opposition to rouse pious souls, and to awaken them from that drowsy lethargy wherein, by so long tranquillity, they had been inmierged. If we should lay the loss we have sustained in the number of those who have gone astray, in the balance against the benefit we have had by being again put in breath, and by having our zeal and strength revived by reason of this opposition, I know not whether the utility would not surmount the damage.

We have thought to tie the nuptial knot of our marriages more fast and firm by having taken away all means of dissolving it, but the knot of the will and affection is so much the

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more slackened and made loose, by how much that of constraint is drawn closer; and, on the contrary, that which kept the marriages at Rome so long in honor and inviolate, was the liberty every one who so desired had to break them; they kept their wives the bet- ter, because they might part with them, if they would; and, in the full liberty of divorce, five hundred years and more passed away be- fore any one made use on't.

"What you may, is displeasing; what is forbidden, whets the appetite."

We might here introduce the opinion of an ancient upon this occasion, ''that execu- tions rather whet than dull the edge of vices: that they do not beget the care of doing well, that being the work of reason and discipline, but only a care not to be taken in doing ill : ' '

*'The infection of the checked plague spreads all the more."

I do not know that this is true; but I ex- perimentally know, that never civil govern- ment was by that means reformed; the order

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and regimen of manners depend upon some other expedient.

The Greek histories make mention of the Argippians, neighbors to Scythia, who live without either rod or stick for offence; where not only no one attempts to attack them, but whoever can fly thither is safe, by reason of their virtue and sanctity of life, and no one is so bold as to lay hands upc«i them; and they have applications made to them to de- termine the controversies that arise betwixt men of other countries. There is a certain nation, where the enclosures of gardens and fields they would preserve, are made only of a string of cotton; and, so fenced, is more firm and secure than by our hedges and ditches: —

"Things sealed up invite a thief: the house- breaker passes by open doors.'*

Peradventure, the facility of entering my house, amongst other things, has been a means to preserve it from the violence of our civil wars: defence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy. I enervated the soldiers' design by depriving the exploit of

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danger and all manner of military glory, which is wont to serve them for pretence and excuse: whatever is bravely, is ever honorably, done, at a time when justice is dead. I render them the conquest of my house cowardly and base; it is never shut to any one that knocks; my gate has no other guard than a porter, and he of ancient cus- tom and ceremony, who does not so much serve to defend it as to offer it with more decorum and grace; I have no other guard nor sentinel than the stars. A gentleman would play the fool to make a show of de- fence, if he be not really in a condition to defend himself. He who lies open on one side, is everywhere so; our ancestors did not think of building frontier garrisons. The means of assaulting, I mean without battery or army, and of surprising our houses, in- creases every day more and more beyond the means to guard them; men*s wits are generally bent that way; in invasion every one is concerned: none but the rich in de- fence. Mine was strong for the time when it was built; I have added nothing to it of that kind, and should fear that its strength

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might turn against myself; to which we are to consider that a peaceable time would re- quire it should be dismantled. There is danger never to be able to regain it, and it would be very hard to keep; for in intestine dissensions, your man may be of the party you fear; and where religion is the pretext, even a man's nearest relations become un- reliable, with some color of justice. The public exchjequer will not maintain our do- mestic garrisons; they would exhaust it: we ourselves have not the means to do it with- out ruin, or, which is more inconvenient and injurious^ without ruining the people. The condition of my loss would be scarcely worse. As to the rest, you there lose all; and even your friends will be more ready to ac- cuse your want of vigilance and your im- providence, and your ignorance of and in- difference to your own business, than to pity you. That so many garrisoned houses have been undone whereas this of mine remains, makes me apt to believe that they were only lost by being guarded; this gives an enemy both an invitation and color of reason ; all de- fence shows a face of war. Let who will

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come to me in God's name; but I shall not invite them; 'tis the retirement I have chosen for my repose from war. I endeavor to withdraw this comer from the public tempest, as I also do another comer in my soul. Our war may put on what forms it will, multiply and diversify itself into new parties; for my part, I stir not. Amongst so many garrisoned houses, myself alone amongst those of my rank, so far as I know, in France, have trusted purely to Heaven for the protection of mine, and have never removed plate, deeds, or hangings. I will neither fear nor save myself by halves. If a full acknowledgment acquires the Divine favor, it will stay with me to the end: if not, I have still continued long enough to render my continuance remarkable and fit to be re- corded. How? Why, there are thirty years that I have thus lived.

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OF GLORY

THERE IS the name and the thing: the name is a voice which denotes and signifies the thing; the name is no part of the thing, nor of the substance; 'tis a foreign piece joined to the thing, and outside it.

God, who is all fulness in Himself and the height of all perfection, cannot augment or add anything to Himself within; but His name may be augmented and increased by the blessing and praise we attribute to His exterior works: which praise, seeing we can- not incorporate it in Him, forasmuch as He can have no accession of good, we attribute to His name, which is the part out of Him that is nearest to us. Thus is it that to God alone glory and honor appertain; and there is nothing so remote from reason as that we should go in quest of it for ourselves; for, being indigent and necessitous within, our essence being imperfect, and having con- tinual need of amelioration, 'tis to that we ought to employ all our endeavor. We are all hollow and empty; 'tis not with wind and voice that we are to fill ourselves; we want a

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more solid substance to repair us: a man starving with hunger would be very simple to seek rather to provide himself with a gay garment than with a good meal; we are to look after that whereof we have most need. As we have it in our ordinary prayers: —

** Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace to men."

We are in want of beauty, health, wisdom, virtue, and such like essential qualities: ex- terior ornaments should be looked after when we have made provision for necessary things. Divinity treats amply and more pertinently of this subject, but I am not much versed in it.

Chrysippus and Diogenes were the earliest and firmest advocates of the contempt of glory; and maintained that, amongst all pleasures, there was none more dangerous nor more to be avoided than that which pro- ceeds from the approbation of others. And, in truth, * experience makes us sensible of many very hurtful treasons in it. There is nothing that so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more

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easily obtain credit and favor with them; nor panderism so apt and so usually made use of to corrupt the chastity of women as to wheedle and entertain them with their own praises. The first charm the Syrens made use of to allure Ulysses is of this nature: —

**Come hither to us, O admirable Ulysses, come hither, thou greatest ornament and pride of Greece.'*

These philosophers said, that all the glory of the world was not worth an understanding man's holding out his finger to obtain it: —

"What is glory, be it as glorious as it may be, if it be no more than glory?"

I say for it alone; for it often brings several commodities along with it, for which it may justly be desired: it acquires us good-will, and renders us less subject and exposed to insult and offence from others, and the like. It was also one of the principal doctrines of Epicurus; for this precept of his sect, Con- ceal thy life, that forbids men to encumber themselves with public negotiations and offices, also necessarily presupposes a con-

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tempt of glory, which is the world's appro- bation of those actions we produce in public. He that bids us conceal ourselves, and to have no other concern but for ourselves, and who will not have us known to others, would much less have us honored and glorified; and so advises Idomeneus not in any sort to regu- late his actions by the common reputation or opinion, except so as to avoid the other ac- cidental inconveniences that the contempt of men might bring upon him.

These discourses are, in my opinion, very true and rational; but we are, I know not how, double in ourselves, which is the cause that what we believe we do not believe, and cannot disengage ourselves from what we condemn. Let us see the last and dying words of Epicurus; they are grand, and worthy of such a philosopher, and yet they carry some touches of the recommendation of his name and of that humor he had decried by his precepts. Here is a letter that he dic- tated a little before his last gasp: —

** Epicurus to Hermachus, health. ** Whilst I was passing over the happy and

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last day of my life, I write this, but, at the same time, afiSicted with such pain in my bladder and bowels that nothing can be greater, but it was recompensed with the pleasure the remembrance of my inventions and doctrines brought to my soul. Now, as the affection thou hast ever from thy infancy borne towards me and philosophy requires, take upon thee the protection of Metrodorus' children."

This is the letter. And that which makes me interpret that the pleasure he says he had in his soul concerning his inventions, has some reference to the reputation he hoped for thence after his death, is the manner of his will, in which he gives order that Amyno- machus and Timocrates, his heirs, should, every January, defray the expense of the celebration of his birthday as Hermachus should appoint; and also the expense that should be made the twentieth of every moon in entertaining the philosophers, his friends, who should assemble in honor of the memory of him and of Metrodorus.

Cameades was head of the contrary opinion, and maintained that glory was to be desired for itself, even as we embrace our

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posthumous issue for themselves, having no knowledge nor enjoyment of them. This opinion has not failed to he the more univer- sally followed, as those commonly are that are most suitable to our inclinations. Aris- totle gives it the first place amongst external goods; and avoids, as too extreme vices, the immoderate either seeking or evading it. I believe that, if we had the books Cicero wrote upon this subject, we should there find pretty stories; for he was so possessed with this passion, that, if he had dared, I think he could willingly have fallen into the ex- cess that others did, that virtue itself was not to be coveted, but upon the account of the honor that always attends it: —

"Virtue concealed little differs from dead sloth :'»

which is an opinion so false, that I am vexed it could ever enter into the understanding of a man that was honored with the name of philosopher.

If this were true, men need not be virtuous but in public; and we should be no further concerned to keep the operations of the soul,

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which is the true seat of virtue, regular and in order, than as they are to arrive at the knowledge of others. Is there no more in it, then, but only slyly and with eircunaspec- tion to do ill? **If thou knowest,'* says Cameades, **of a serpent lurking in a place where, without suspicion, a person is going to sit down, by whose death thou expectest an advantage, thou dost ill if thou dost not give him caution of his danger; and so much the more because the action is to be known by none but thyself." If we do not take up of ourselves the rule of well-doing, if im- punity pass with us for justice, to how many sorts of wickedness shall we every day abandon ourselves? I do not find what Sextus Peduceus did, in faithfully restoring the treasure that C. Plotius had committed to his sole secrecy and trust, a thing that I have often done myself, so commendable, as I should think it an execrable baseness, had we done otherwise; and I think it of good use in our days to recall the ex- ample of P. Sextilius Eufus, whom Cicero accuses to have entered upon an inheritance contrary to his conscience, not only not

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against law, but even by the determination of the laws themselves; and M. Crassus and Q. Hortensius, who, by reason of their au- thority and power, having been -called in by a stranger ta share in the succession of a forged will, that so he might secure his own part, satisfied themselves with having no hand in the forgery, and refused not to make their advantage and to come in for a share: secure enough, if they could shroud them- selves from accusations, witnesses, and the cognizance of the laws : —

**Let them consider they have God to wit- ness, that is (as I interpret it), their own consciences/*

Virtue is a very vain and frivolous thing if it derive its recommendation from glory; and 'tis to no purpose that we endeavor to give it a station by itself, and separate it from fortune; for what is more accidental than reputation? —

** Fortune rules in all things; it advances and depresses things more out of its own will than of right and justice.'*

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So to order it that actions may be known and seen is purely the work of fortune; 'tis chance that helps us to glory, according to its own temerity. I have often seen her go before merit, and often very much outstrip it. He who first likened glory to a shadow did bet- ter than he was aware of; they are both of them things pre-eminently vain: glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely ex- ceeds it. They who instruct gentlemen only to employ their valor for the obtaining of honor: —

''As though it were not a virtue, unless celebrated ; ' '

what do they intend by that but to instruct them never to hazard themselves if they are not seen, and to observe well if there be wit- nesses present who may carry news of their valor, whereas a thousand occasions of well- doing present themselves which cannot be taken notice of? How many brave individual actions are buried in the crowd of a battle? Whoever shall take upon him to watch another's behavior in such a confusion is not

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very busy himself, and the testimony he shall give of his companions' deportment will be evidence against himself: —

*'The true and wise magnanimity judges that the bravery which most follows nature more consists in act than glory. ' '

All the glory that I pretend to derive from my life is that I have lived it in quiet; in quiet, not according to Metrodorus, or Arcesi- laus, or Aristippus, but according to myself. For seeing philosophy has nort been able to find out any way to tranquillity that is good in common, let every one seek it in particular.

To what do Caesar and .Alexander owe the infinite grandeur of their renown but to for- tune? How many men has she extinguished in the beginning of their progress, of whom we have no knowledge, who brought as much courage to the work as they, if their adverse hap had not cut them off in the first sally of their arms? Amongst so many and so great dangers I do not remember I have anywhere read that Caesar was ever wounded; a thousand have fallen in less dangers than the least of those he went through. An infinite

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number of brave actions must be performed without witness and lost, before one turns to account. A man is not always on the top of a breach, or at the head of an army, in the sight of his general, as upon a scaffold; a man if often surprised betwixt the hedge and the ditch; he must run the hazard of his life against a henroost; he must dislodge four rascally musketeers out of a bam; he must prick out single from his party, and alone make some attempts, according as necessity will have it. And whoever will observe will, I believe, find it experimentally true, that occasions of the least lustre are ever the most dangerous ; and that in the wars of our own times there have more brave men been lost in occasions of little moment, and in the dispute about some little paltry fort, than in places of greatest importance, and where their valor might have been more honorably employed.

Who thinks his death achieved to ill pur- pose if he do not fall on some signal occasion, instead of illustrating his death, wilfully obscures his life, suffering in the meantime many very just occasions of hazarding him-

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self to slip out of his hands; and every just one is illustrious enough, every man's con- science being a sufficient trumpet to him: —

"For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience." v

He who is only a good man that men may know it, and that he may be the better esteemed when 'tis known: who will not do well but upon condition that his virtue may be known to men: is one from whom much service is not to be expected: —

"The rest of the winter, I believe, was spent in actions worthy of narration, but they were done so secretly that if I do not tell them I am not to blame, for Orlando was more bent to do great acts than to boast of them, sp that no deeds of his were ever known but those that had witnesses. ' '

A man must go to the war upon the account of duty, and expect the recompense that never fails brave and worthy actions, how private soever, or even virtuous thoughts — the satis- faction that a well-disposed conscience re- ceives in itself in doing well. A man must

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be valiant for himself, and upon account of the advantage it is to him to have his courage seated in a firm and secure place against the assaults of fortune; —

"Virtue, ignorant of sordid refusal, shines in taintless honors, nor takes nor leaves au- thority at the mere will of the vulgar."

It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part, but for ourselves within, where no eyes can pierce but our own; there she defends us from the fear of death, of pain, of shame itself: there she arms us against the loss of our children, friends, and fortunes: and when opportunity presents itself, she leads us on to the hazards of war: — •

**Not for any profit, but for the honor of honesty itself."

This profit is of much greater advantage, and more worthy to be coveted and hoped for, than honor and glory, which are no other than a favorable judgment given of us.

A dozen men must be called out of a whole nation to judge about an acre of land; and the judgment of our inclinations and actions.

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the most difficult and most important matter that is, we refer to the voice and determina- tion of the rabble, the mother of ignorance, injustice, and inconstancy. Is it reasonable that the life of a wise man should depend upon the judgment of fools? —

*'Can anything be more foolish than to think that those you despise singly, can be anything else in general."

He that makes it his business to please them, will have enough to do and never have done ; *tis a mark that can never be aimed at or hit:—

''Nothing is to be so little understood as the minds of the multitude.'*

Demetrius pleasantly said of the voice of the people, that he made no more account of that which came from above than of that which came from below. He (Cicero) says more: —

"I am of opinion, that though a thing be not foul ui itself, yet it cannot but become so when commended by the multitude. ' '

No art, no activity of wit, could conduct our

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steps so as to follow so wandering and so irregular a guide; in this windy confusion of the noise of vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on, no way worth anything can be chosen. Let us not propose to ourselves so floating and wavering an end; let us fol- low constantly after reason; let the public approbation follow us there, if it will; and as it wholly depends upon fortune, we have no reason sooner to expect it by any other way than that. Even though I would not follow the right way because it is right, I should, however, follow it as having experimentally found that, at the end of the reckoning, 'tis commonly the most happy and of greatest utility: —

**This gift Providence has given to men, that honest things should be the most agree- able.'^

The mariner of old said thus to Neptune, in a great tempest : * * 0 God, thou wilt save me if thou wilt, and if thou choosest, thou wilt destroy me; but, however, I will hold my rudder straiglit." I have seen in my time a thousand men supple, half-bred, ambiguous,

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whom no one doubted to be more worldly- wise than I, lose themselves, where I have saved myself: —

"I have laughed to see cunning able to fail of success.'*

Paulus Aemilius, going on the glorious ex- pedition of Macedonia, above all things charged the people of Rome not to speak of his actions during his absence. Oh, the license of judgments is a great disturbance to great affairs I forasmuch as every one has not the firmness of Fabius against common, adverse, and injurious tongues, who rather suffered his authority to be dissected by the vain fancies of men, than to do less well in his charge with a favorable reputation and the popular applause.

There is I know not what natural sweet- ness in hearing one's self commended; but we are a great deal too fond of it: —

*'I should fear to be praised, for my heart is not made of horn; but I deny that 'excel- lent— admirably done,' are the terms and fijial aim of virtue."

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I care not so much what I am in the opinion of others, as what I am in my own ; I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing. Strangers see nothing but events and outward appearances; everybody can set a good face on the matter, when they have trembling and terror within: they do not see my heart, they see but my countenance. One is right in de- crying the hypocrisy that is in war; for what is more easy to an old soldier than to shift in a time of danger, and to counterfeit the brave when he has no more heart than a chicken? There are so many ways to avoid hazarding a man's own person, that we have deceived the world a thousand times before we come to be engaged in a real danger: and even then, finding ourselves in an inevitable necessity of doing something, we can make shift for that time to conceal our apprehen- sions by setting a good face on the business, though the heart beats within; and whoever had the use of the Platonic ring, which ren- ders those invisible that wear it, if turned inward towards the palm of the hand, a great many would very often hide themselves when

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they ought most to appear, and would repent being placed in so honorable a post, where necessity must make them bold: —

"False honor pleases, and calumny af- frights, the guilty and the sick. ' '

Thus we see how all the judgments that are founded upon external appearances, are mar- vellously uncertain and doubtful; and that there is no so certain testimony as every one is to himself. In these, how many soldiers* boys are companions of our glory! he who stands firm in an open trench, what does he in that more than fifty poor pioneers who open to him the way and cover it with their own bodies for fivepence a day pay, do be- fore him?

'*Do not, if turbulent Rome disparage any- thing, accede; nor correct a false balance by that scale; nor seek anything beyond thy- self."

The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making them more great; we will have them there well received, and that this increase turn to their advantage,

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which is all that can be excusable in this de- sign. But the excess of this disease proceeds so far that many covet to have a name, be it what it will. Trogus Pompeius says of Hero- stratus, and Titus Livius of Manlius Capito- linus, that they were more ambitious of a great reputation than of a good one. This is very common; we are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak; and it is enough for us that our names are often mentioned, be it after what manner it will. It should seem that to be known, is in some sort to have a man's life and its duration in others' keeping. I, for my part, hold that I am not, but in myself; and of that other life of mine which lies in the knowledge of my friends, to consider it naked and simply in itself, I know very well that I am sensible of no fruit nor enjoyment from it but by the vanity of a fantastic opinion; and when I shall be dead, I shall be still and much less sensible of it; and shall, withal, absolutely lose the use of those real advantages that sometimes accidentally follow it. I shall have no more handle whereby to take hold of repu- tation, neither shall it have any whereby to

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take hold of or to cleave to me ; for to expect that my name should be advanced by it, in the first place, I have no name that is enough my own; of two that I have, one is common to all my race, and indeed to others also; there are two families at Paris and Mont- pellier, whose surname is Montaigne, another in Brittany, and one in Xaintogne, De La Montaigne. The transposition of one syllable only would suffice so to ravel our affairs, that I shall share in their glory, and they per- adventure will partake of my discredit; and, moreover, my ancestors have formerly been sumamed Eyquem, a name wherein a family well known in England is at this day con- cerned. As to my other name, every one may take it that will, and so, perhaps, I may honor a porter in my own stead. And besides, though I had a particular distinction by my- self, what can it distinguish, when I am no more? Can it point out and favor inanity? —

**Doe8 the tomb press with less weight upon my bones? Do comrades praise? Not from my Manes, not from the tomb, not from the ashes will violets grow;"

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but of this I have spoken elsewhere. As to what remains, in a great battle where ten thousand men are maimed or killed, there are not fifteen who are taken notice of; it must be some very eminent greatness, or some con- sequence of great importance that fortune has added to it, that signalizes a private action, not of a harquebuser only, but of a great cap- tain; for to kill a man, or two, or ten: to expose a man's self bravely to the utmost peril of death, is indeed something in every one of us, because we there hazard all; but for the world's concern, they are things so ordinary, and so many of them are every day seen, and there must of necessity be so many of the same kind to produce any notable effect, that we cannot expect any particular renown from it: —

"The accident is known to many,