We are all richer than we think, but we are brought up to go a-begging.
The greatest masterpiece of man is ... to be born at the right time.
We append a saying of Montaigne’s not found in Mr. St. John’s collection:
There is no so good man, who so squares all his thoughts and actions to the laws, that he is not faulty enough to deserve hanging ten times in his life.
Montaigne was too intensely an egotist, in his character as man no less than in his character as writer, to have many personal relations that exhibit him in aspects engaging to our love. But one friendship of his is memorable—is even historic. The name of La Boëtie is forever associated with the name of Montaigne. La Boëtie is remarkable for being, as we suppose, absolutely the first voice raised in France against the idea of monarchy. His little treatise Contr’ Un (literally, “Against One”), or “Voluntary Servitude,” is by many esteemed among the most important literary productions of modern times. Others, again, Mr. George Saintsbury, for example, consider it an absurdly overrated book. For our own part, we are inclined to give it conspicuous place in the history of free thought in France. La Boëtie died young; and his Contr’ Un was published posthumously—first by the Protestants, after the terrible day of St. Bartholomew. Our readers may judge for themselves whether a pamphlet in which such passages as the following could occur must not have had an historic effect upon the inflammable sentiment of the French people. We take Mr. Bayle St. John’s translation, bracketing a hint or two of correction suggested by comparison of the original French. The treatise of La Boëtie is sometimes now printed with Montaigne’s “Essays,” in French editions of our author’s works; La Boëtie says:
You sow your fruits [crops] that he [the king] may ravage them; you furnish and fill your houses that he may have something to steal; you bring up your daughters that he may slake his luxury; you bring up your sons that he may take them to be butchered in his wars, to be the ministers of his avarice, the executors of his vengeance; you disfigure your forms by labor [your own selves you inure to toil] that he may cocker himself in delight, and wallow in nasty and disgusting pleasure.
Montaigne seems really to have loved this friend of his, whom he reckoned the greatest man in France. His account of La Boëtie’s death, Mr. St. John boldly, and not presumptuously, parallels with the “Phædon” of Plato. Noble writing, it certainly is, though its stateliness is a shade too self-conscious, perhaps.
We have thus far presented Montaigne in words of his own such as may fairly be supposed likely to prepossess the reader in his favor. We could multiply our extracts indefinitely in a like unexceptionable vein of writing. But to do so, and to stop with these, would misrepresent Montaigne. Montaigne is very far from being an innocent writer. His moral tone generally is low, and often it is execrable. He is coarse, but coarseness is not the worst of him. Indeed, he is cleanliness itself compared with Rabelais. But Rabelais is morality itself compared with Montaigne. Montaigne is corrupt and corrupting. This feature of his writings we are necessarily forbidden to illustrate. In an essay written in his old age—which we will not even name, its general tenor is so evil—Montaigne holds the following language:
I gently turn aside, and avert my eyes from the stormy and cloudy sky I have before me, which, thanks be to God, I regard without fear, but not without meditation and study, and amuse myself in the remembrance of my better years:
“Animus quod perdidit, optat,
Atque in præterita se totus imagine versat.”—Petronius, c. 128.