The morality of the Essays has been called, and justly so, a pagan morality: it is not founded on the faith and the hopes of a Christian; and its principles are in many respects widely different from those of the Gospel. Scepticism was the bias of Montaigne’s mind; his philosophy is, in great measure, that of Seneca, and other ancient writers, whose books were the first that were put into his hands when a child. Accordingly, Pascal, Nicole, Leclerc, and other Christian moralists, while rendering full justice to Montaigne’s talents and the many good sentiments scattered about the Essays, are very severe upon his ethics, taken as a system. Yet he was not a determined infidel, for not only in the Essays, but in the journal of his travels, which was not intended for publication, he manifests Christian sentiments; and we have seen that the mode of his death was that of a Christian. In his chapter on prayers, (Essais, b. i. 56,) he recommends the use of the Lord’s Prayer in terms evidently sincere; and in a preceding chapter, after speaking of two sorts of ignorance, the one, that which precedes all instruction, and the other, that which follows partial instruction, he says, that “men of simple minds, devoid of curiosity and of learning, are Christians through reverence and obedience; that minds of middle growth and moderate capacities are the most prone to error and doubt; but that higher intellects, more clear-sighted and better grounded in science, form a superior class of believers, who, through long and religious investigations, arrive at the fountain of light of the Scriptures, and feel the mysterious and divine meaning of our ecclesiastical doctrines. And we see some who reach this last stage, through the second, with marvellous fruit and confirmation; and who, having attained the extreme boundary of Christian intelligence, enjoy their success with modesty and thanksgivings, accompanied by a total reformation of their morals, unlike those men of another stamp, who, in order to clear themselves of the suspicion of their past errors, become violent, indiscreet, unjust, and throw discredit on the cause which they pretend to serve.” (Essais, b. i. ch. 54.) And a few lines after, he modestly places himself in the second rank, of those who, disdaining the first state of uninformed simplicity, have not yet attained the third and last exalted stage, and who, he says, are thereby rendered “inept, importunate, and troublesome to society. But I, for my part, endeavour, as much as I can, to fall back upon my first and natural condition, from which I have idly attempted to depart.” Although we may not trust implicitly to the sincerity of this modest admission, yet we clearly see from this and other passages, that Montaigne’s mind was anything but dogmatical, and that he felt the insecurity of his own philosophy, which was made up of impulses and doubts, rather than of argumentation and conviction.
Montaigne has been also censured for several licentious and some cynical passages of his ‘Essais.’ This licentiousness, however, is rather in the expressions than in the meaning of the author. He spoke plainly of things which are not alluded to in a more refined state of society, but he did so evidently without mischievous intentions, and as a thing of common occurrence in his days. His early familiarity with the Latin classics probably contributed to this habit.
Notwithstanding these faults, Montaigne’s Essays are justly admired for the sound sense, honesty, and beauty which abound in them. ‘The best parts of them (says a French critic) are those in which he speaks of the passions and inclinations of men; as for his learning, it is vague, not methodical, and uncertain; and his philosophical maxims are often dangerous.’ (Mélanges d’Histoire et de Litterature,’ Rouen, 1699, tom. i. p. 133.) Montaigne combats most earnestly all the malignant feelings inherent in man, inhumanity, injustice, oppression, uncharitableness; cruelty he detests, his whole nature was averse from it. His chapters on pedantry and on the education of children are remarkably good. He throws, at times, considerable light on the state of society and manners in France in his time, which may be considered as the last period of feudal power in that country. In his chapter on the inequality among men, he speaks of the independence of the French nobility, especially in the provinces remote from the Court, as Britanny; where the feudal lords living on their estates, surrounded by their vassals, their officers and valets, their household conducted with an almost royal ceremonial, heard of the king but once a-year as if he were some distant king or Sultan of Persia, and only remembered him on the score of some distant relationship, which they hold carefully registered among their ancestral documents.
Mademoiselle de Gournay edited Montaigne’s ‘Essais’ in 1635, and dedicated the edition to the Cardinal de Richelieu. She wrote a long preface to it, which is a zealous apology for Montaigne and his works against the charges of the earlier critics. An edition of the ‘Essais’ was published by Pierre Coste, 3 vols. 4to. London, 1724, enriched with valuable notes and several letters of Montaigne at the end of the third volume. The edition of Paris, 3 vols. 4to. 1725, is, in great measure, a reprint of that of Coste, except that the publishers have added extracts of the various judgments of the most distinguished critical writers concerning the ‘Essais,’ and also two more letters of Montaigne’s at the end. These additions render this Paris edition the most complete. The ex-senator Vernier published in 1810, ‘Notices et Observations pour faciliter la Lecture des Essais de Montaigne,’ Paris, 2 vols. 8vo. It is a useful commentary.
POPE.
Alexander Pope was born in London, June S, 1688. His father was a merchant, of good family, attached to the Roman Catholic religion; and his own childish years were spent, first under the tuition of a priest, then at a Roman Catholic Seminary at Twyford, near Winchester. He taught himself to write by copying printed books, in the execution of which he attained great neatness and exactness. When little more than eight years old he accidentally met with Ogilby’s Translation of Homer. The versification is insipid and lifeless; but the stirring events and captivating character of the story so possessed his mind, that Ogilby became a favourite book. When about ten years old he was removed from Twyford to a school at Hyde Park Corner. He had there occasional opportunities of frequenting the theatre; which suggested to him the amusement of turning the chief events in Homer into a kind of play, composed of a succession of speeches from Ogilby, strung together by verses of his own. In these two schools he seems, instead of advancing, to have lost what he had gained under his first tutor. When twelve years old he went to live with his parents at Binfield, in Windsor Forest. He there became acquainted with the writings of Spenser, Waller, and Dryden. For the latter he conceived the greatest admiration. He saw him once, and commemorates the event in his correspondence, under the words “Virgilium tantum vidi:” but he was too young to have made acquaintance with that master of English verse, who died in 1701. He studied Dryden’s works with equal attention and pleasure, adopted them as a model of rhythm, and copied the structure of that author’s periods. This was, however, so far from a grovelling imitation, that it enabled him to raise English rhyme to the most perfect melody of which it is capable.
Engraved by J. Posselwhite.
POPE.
From the Picture by Hudson in the possession of His Grace the Duke of Buckingham.
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street.
In the retirement of Binfield, Pope laboured successfully to make amends for the loss of past time. At fourteen years of age he had written with some elegance, and at fifteen had attained some knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, to which he soon added French and Italian. In 1704 he began his pastorals, published in 1709, which introduced him, through Wycherley, to the acquaintance of Walsh, who proved a sincere friend to him. That gentleman discovered at once that Pope’s talent lay less in striking out new thoughts of his own, than in easy versification, and in improving what he borrowed from the ancients. Among other useful hints, he pointed out that we had several great poets, but that none of them were correct; he therefore admonished him to make that merit his own. The advice was gratefully received; and Pope’s correspondence shows that it was carefully followed. His melodious numbers, so marked a feature of his style, were in a great measure the result of that suggestion.