MONTAIGNE, (Michel de) a celebrated French writer, was born at the Chateau de Montaigne, near Ber gerac, upon the Dordogne, on the 28th of February, 1533. He was the third son of Eyquem, a man of rank and probity, who appears to have discharged the paternal duties with extraordinary care. Young Michel was awakened every morning by soft music, lest sudden excitation might injure his health ; and a German do mestic, unacquainted with the French language, taught him to express his first ideas in Latin. At the age of six years, he was sent to the College of Bordeaux, then conducted by the most celebrated preceptors in France, one of whom was our distinguished countryman, George Buchanan. Montaigne's knowledge of Latin, acquired in a manner so uncommon, was here of some avail to him ; and though we may be allowed to doubt his asser tion, that the masters were afraid to accost him,' the instructions of his nurse must have materially contribu ted to form that minute and extensive acquaintance with classical literature, and that strong tinge of Latinity, for which his writings arc so remarkable.
After seven years occupied in such studies, Mon-. taigne, with the view of becoming a lawyer, engaged in the requisite course of preparation ; but his love of jurisprudence, and his progress in that science, appear to have been equally small. The Parliament of Bour dean!: seldom witnessed his official exertions ; and after his elder brother's death, from the stroke or a tennis ball, he gladly exchanged the advocate's gown for the sword of a country gentleman. A short time after, 1560, he married Francoise, daughter of a celebrated pleader, Joseph de la Chassagne ; and, possessing the Chateau de Montaigne, which his father bequeathed to him in 1569, enjoying a competent fortune and domestic happiness, he had full leisure to combine rural and in tellectual employment in the most suitable proportion. Study seems, however, to have attracted nearly all his attention; riding afforded a healthful and favourite ex ercise ; he lived remote from the political quarrels which, at that period, distracted his country ; and few 1.g or committing to
paper such reflections as that reading excited, in what ever order they occurred. Before the decease of his father, Montaigne bad translated the Natural Theology of Raymon0 de Sebonde ; and, in 1571, he superin tended the posthumous publication of his friend, the Sieur de la Boetic's works. Hc did not appear in the character of an original author till 1580, when the fruit of his meditations was published under the title of Essays, at Bourdeaux. Eight years afterwards, in a new edition prepared under his eye at Pat is, the work was augment ed by a third book, and many additions to the part al ready published.
In this singular production, 'Montaigne completely fulfils the promise of r painting himself in his natural and simple mood, without study or artifice.' And though Scaligcr might perhaps reasonably ask, What matters it whether Montaigne liked white wine or claret ?"—a modern reader will not easily cavil at the patient and good-natured, though exuberant egotism, which brings back to our view the form and pressure' of a time long past. The habits and humours, the mode of acting and thinking, which characterized a Gascon gentleman in the sixteenth century, cannot fail to amuse an enquirer of the nineteenth ; while the faithful delineation of human feelings, in all their strength and weakness, will serve as a mirror to every mind capable of self-examination. But if details, otherwise frivolous, are pardoned, because of the antique charm which is about them, no excuse or even apology, of a satisfactory kind, can be devised for the gross indelicacy which frequently deforms these Essays; and as Alontaigne, by an abundant store of bold ideas, and a deep insight into the principles of our com mon nature, deserves to be ranked high among the great men of his own original age, he also deserves the bad pre-eminence, in love, at once of coarseness and ob scenity.