David Turner, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
THAT WE SHOULD NOT JUDGE OF OUR HAPPINESS UNTIL AFTER OUR DEATH THAT
TO PHILOSOPHISE IS TO LEARNE How TO DIE OF THE INSTITUTION AND
EDUCATION OF CHILDREN OF FRIENDSHIP OF BOOKES BY MONTAIGNE
Michel Eyquem De Montaigne, the founder of the modern Essay, wasborn February 28, 1533, at the chateau of Montaigne in Pirigord. Hecame of a family of wealthy merchants of Bordeaux, and was educatedat the College de Guyenne, where he had among his teachers the greatScottish Latinist, George Buchanan. Later he studied law, and heldvarious public offices; but at the age of thirty-eight he retired tohis estates, where he lived apart from the civil wars of the time,and devoted himself to study and thought. While he was traveling inGermany and Italy, in 1580-81, he was elected mayor of Bordeaux, andthis office he filled for four years. He married in 1565, and hadsix daughters, only one of whom grew up. The first two books of his"Essays" appeared in 1580; the third in 1588; and four years laterhe died.
These are the main external facts of Montaigne's life: of the manhimself the portrait is to be found in his book. "It is myself Iportray," he declares; and there is nowhere in literature a volumeof self-revelation surpassing his in charm and candor. He is franklyegotistical, yet modest and unpretentious; profoundly wise, yetconstantly protesting his ignorance; learned, yet careless,forgetful, and inconsistent. His themes are as wide and varied ashis observation of human life, and he has written the finest eulogyof friendship the world has known. Bacon, who knew his book andborrowed from it, wrote on the same subject; and the contrast of theessays is the true reflection of the contrast between thepersonalities of their authors.
Shortly after Montaigne's death the "Essays" were translated intoEnglish by John Florio, with less than exact accuracy, but in astyle so full of the flavor of the age that we still read Montaignein the version which Shakespeare knew. The group of examples hereprinted exhibits the author in a variety of moods, easy, serious,and, in the essay on "Friendship," as nearly impassioned as hisphilosophy ever allowed him to become.
Reader, be here a well-meaning Booke. It doth at the firth entranceforewarne thee, that in contriving the same I have proposed unto myselfe no other than a familiar and private end: I have no respect orconsideration at all, either to thy service, or to my glory: myforces are not capable of any such desseigne. I have vowed the sameto the particular commodity of my kinsfolks and friends: to the end,that losing me (which they are likely to doe ere long), they maytherein find some lineaments of my conditions and humours, and bythat meanes reserve more whole, and more lively foster the knowledgeand acquaintance they have had of me. Had