The scepticism of Montaigne.
It is but natural that a writer who deals with permanently interesting questions of principle and conduct, and who has always been read, should have been diversely judged during the very different centuries which have passed since his death. The judgments of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries on the scepticism of Montaigne are in fact examples of a truth which he has himself most excellently stated—namely, that we read much of ourselves into our authors. During the strong Roman Catholic reaction of the seventeenth century his amused interest in both sides of all questions, and his favourite thesis that no doctrine is so sure that we are justified in killing men for it, were found exasperating by those who were terribly in earnest. In the eighteenth century he was praised, and accepted as a forerunner of Voltaire, on these very grounds. What one body of critics called poorness of spirit and coldness of heart, another called wisdom. For that he would himself have been prepared. In the first of his Essays, “By divers meanes men come unto a like end,” he states what was perhaps the firmest of his convictions—to wit, that “surely man is a wonderfull, vaine, divers, and wavering subject; it is very hard to ground any directly-constant and uniforme judgement upon him.” We shall perhaps not go far wrong if we describe the scepticism of Montaigne as a constant recollection that whatever men have said, thought, or done, has been necessarily the work of this “vaine, divers, and wavering subject,” and is not to be taken too seriously. A wise man will accept the social and religious order of his country, even with its vices, since we have so little wisdom that our efforts at amendment will probably produce more mischief than they will correct. In any case, what has existed and stood the test of experience has more claim on our loyalty than the mere guesses of the reformer. Yet, while accepting existing order, he need not believe in it too much, and he certainly need not deny himself the pleasure of noting the innumerable absurdities of even the most respectable parts of man’s handiwork. Science is vain, since it is but speculation on subjects we shall never really understand. Conduct is the important thing. Do not lie, do not be cruel, do not be a pedant (on these points indeed there was no scepticism in Montaigne); do not strive after unattainable ideals of truth (for what is truth except what we think about the causes and nature of things, and what are we but “vaine, diverse, and wavering subjects”?), or of virtue, or of chastity. Let us live our lives, exercising all our faculties of body and mind—in prudent moderation, and with due regard to our time of life. It is not the greatest advice which can be given to man. If the human race had acted up to Montaigne’s standard of wisdom, there would have been no prophets, no saints, no martyrs, hardly any great thinkers, or great explorers. It would be possible to follow Montaigne and be a haberdasher of small-wares. One could not follow him and be a bigot, “une bonne ligne droite de ferocité sotte,” in any cause, or disgrace knowledge by pedantry, or conquest and discovery by cruelty and avarice. But it is an idle question whether he was better or worse than Luther or Saint Francis de Sales. He was different, and he is a perfect example of a stamp of man who will never fail while the human race lasts and thinks—the sagacious man who is naturally kind and honest, but is not virtuous in any lofty sense, or capable of strong conviction. Amid the clash of dogmatists, all fanatically sure they were right, and all cruel, which filled the sixteenth century with tumult, the voice of Montaigne supplied something which was sorely needed.
His style.
As a writer the importance of Montaigne can hardly be exaggerated. To him modern literature owes the essay, which of itself would be a claim to immortality. He first set the example of discussing great questions in the tone of the man of the world speaking to men of the world. His style, which can be eloquent to the highest degree, is more commonly easy and “savoury”—full, that is to say, of colour and character. His amplifications, and his constant use of quotations, his lawless wanderings away from his subject, and then through many turnings back to it—when he has a subject at all—his amazing indiscretions concerning his health, his morals, and his family history, his frequent sudden appeals to the reader, as of one speaking in confidence and on the spur of the moment, make up a combination which cannot be defined in its inexhaustible variety. It is not the least charm of the Essays that they invite desultory reading. If advice in this matter were ever of much value, we might recommend the reader who has Montaigne to begin, to start with the “Apologie for Raymond of Sebonde,” which will give him the whole spirit and way of thinking, and then to read as accident dictates. Orderly study is quite unnecessary with an author who starts from no premiss to arrive at no conclusion, whose unity is due not to doctrine but to character, and who “rays out curious observations on life” all illuminated by a vast learning and by humour.
Charron and Du Vair.
The teaching of Montaigne was expounded by Pierre Charron (1541-1603), a lawyer, who took orders, and had written against the League and the Protestants, before he fell under the influence of the author of the Essays. His most famous—or rather, his one surviving—work, the Traité de la Sagesse (1601),[115] is a restatement in more scholastic form of the ideas of Montaigne. Charron also drew largely, for he was not by any means an original writer, on Guillaume du Vair (1556-1621). Du Vair, who is considered one of the best prose-writers of his time, was the author of many treatises on philosophical subjects;[116] but he is remembered mainly for his famous Suasion, or plea for the Salic Law, delivered before the Estates summoned by the League in 1593. He represented the magistracy, and it is said that his argument persuaded the Estates to reject the candidature of the Infanta of Spain, who had been brought forward by the extreme Catholic party as rival to Henry IV.
CHAPTER XII.
THE LATER RENAISSANCE IN ITALY.
THE LATER RENAISSANCE IN ITALY—TORQUATO TASSO—HIS WORK—THE ‘GERUSALEMME LIBERATA’—GIORDANO BRUNO—LITERARY CHARACTER OF HIS WORK—GIAMBATTISTA GUARINI.