It has been said that his health was never strong, and it had been further weakened by the hard living (in both senses of that phrase) which was usual at the time. He resolved, accordingly, to retire to a life of study and contemplation, though he did not in the least seclude himself, and indulged in no asceticism except careful diet. Montaigne was a large country house unfortified (in which circumstance its astute possessor saw rather safety than danger from the turbulence of the religious wars), and its owner’s revenues, without being large, appear to have been easy. He neither had nor professed any enthusiastic affection for his wife, but he lived on excellent terms with her, and bestowed some pains on the education of the only child (a daughter) who survived infancy. In his study, which he has minutely described, he read, wrote, dictated, meditated, inscribed moral sentences, which still remain on the walls and rafters, and in other ways gave himself up to learned ease. He was not new to literature. In his father’s lifetime, and at his request, he had translated the Theologia Naturalis of Raymond de Sebonde, a Spanish schoolman. On first coming to live at Montaigne he edited the works of his deceased friend Étienne de la Boétie, who had been the comrade of his youth, who died early, and who, with poems of real promise, had composed a declamatory and schoolboyish theme on republicanism, entitled the Contr ’ Un, which is one of the most overestimated books in literature. But the years of his studious retirement were spent on a work of infinitely greater importance. Garrulous after a fashion, as Montaigne is, he gives us no clear idea of any original or definite impulse leading him to write the famous Essays. It is very probable that if they were at first intended to have any special form at all it was that of a table-book or journal, such as was never more commonly kept than in the 16 th century. But the author must have been more or less conscious of an order existing in the disorder of his thoughts, and this may have induced him to keep them apart in chapters, or at least under chapter-headings, and at the same time not to cut them up into mere pensées. It is certainly very noticeable that the earlier essays, those of the first two books, differ from the later in one most striking point, in that of length. Speaking generally, the essays of the third book average fully four times the length of those of the other two. This of itself would suggest a difference in the system of composition. For the present, however, we may confine ourselves to the first two books. These appeared in 1580, when their author was forty-seven years old.

They contain, as at present published, no less than ninety-three essays, besides an exceedingly long apology for the already-mentioned Raymond Sebonde, which amounts to about a quarter of the whole in bulk, and differs curiously from its companions in matter no less than in scale. The book begins with a short avis (address to the reader), opening with the well-known words, “C’est icy un livre de bon foy lecteur,” and sketching in a few lively sentences the character of meditative egotism which is kept up throughout. His sole object, the author says, is to leave for his friends and relations a mental portrait of himself, defects and all; he cares neither for utility nor fame. The essays then begin without any attempt to explain or classify their subjects. Their titles are of the most diverse character. Sometimes they are proverbial sayings, or moral adages, such as: “Par divers moyens on arrive à pareille fin ”, “Qu’il ne faut juger de notre heur qu’après la mort ”, “Le profit de l’on est le dommage de Γaultre.” Sometimes they are headed like the chapters of a treatise on ethics: “De la tristesse ”, “De l’oisiveté ”, “De la peur”, “De l’amitié.” Sometimes a fact of some sort which has awaked a train of associations in the mind of the writer serves as a title, such as: “On est puni de s’opiniastrer à une place sans raison ”, “De la bataille de Dreux ”, &c. Occasionally the titles seem to be deliberately fantastic, as: “Des puces ”, “De Γusage de se vestir.” Sometimes, though not very often, the sections are in no proper sense essays, but merely commonplace book entries of singular facts or quotations with hardly any comment. These point to the haphazard or indirect origin of them which has been already suggested. But generally the essay-character—that is to say, the discussion of a special point, it may be with wide digressions and divergences—displays itself. The digressions are indeed constant, and sometimes have the appearance of being absolutely wilful. The nominal title, even when most strictly observed, is rarely more than a starting-point; and, though the brevity of these first essays for the most part prevents the author from journeying very far, he contrives to get to the utmost range of his tether. Quotations are very frequent. These are the principal external characteristics of the book; its internal spirit had better be treated when it can be spoken of completely.

Between the publication of the first two books of essays in 1580 and the publication of the third in 1588, Montaigne’s life as distinguished from his writings becomes somewhat better known, and somewhat more interesting. He had, during the eight years of composition of his first volume, visited Paris occasionally and travelled for health or pleasure to Cauterets, Eaux Chaudes, and elsewhere. Charles IX., apparently, had made him one of his gentlemen in ordinary, and perhaps conferred on him the order of St Michael. The fiercest period of the religious wars, save that yet to come of the League, passed over him without harming him, though not without subjecting him to some risks. But his health grew worse and worse, and he was tormented by stone and gravel. He accordingly resolved to journey to the baths of Lucca. Late in the 18th century a journal was found in the chateau of Montaigne, giving an account of this journey, and it was published in 1774; part of it is written in Italian and part dictated in French, the latter being for the most part the work of a secretary or servant. Whatever may be the biographical value of this work, which has rarely been reprinted with the Essays themselves, it is almost entirely destitute of literary interest. Written, moreover, according to its own showing merely for the author’s own eye, it contains abundance of details as to the medicinal effect of the various baths which he visited, details which may be said to be superfluous to a medical reader, and disgusting to any other. The course of the journey was first northwards to Plombières, then by Basel to Augsburg and Munich, then through Tyrol to Verona and Padua in Italy. Montaigne visited most of the famous cities of the north and centre, staying five months at Rome, and finally establishing himself at the baths of Lucca for nearly as long a time. There he received news of his election as mayor of Bordeaux, and after some time journeyed homewards. The tour contains much minute information about roads, food, travelling, <fcc., but the singular condition in which it exists, and the absence of a really good critical edition hitherto, make it rather difficult to use it as a document. The freak of writing part of it in a strange dog-Italian is not uncharacteristic of Montaigne, but the words of his last and best editors, MM. Courbet and Royer, who speak of the letters as “l’unique complément des essais,” seem to indicate that they are not of those who accept the published Voyage as authentic. Of the fact of the journey there is no doubt whatever.

Montaigne (as was not unnatural in a man of his temperament, who had for some years, if not for the greater part of his life, lived solely to please himself) was not altogether delighted at his election to the mayoralty, which promised him two years of responsible if not very hard work. The memory of his father, however, and the commands of the king, which seem to have been expressed in a manner rather stronger than a mere formal confirmation, induced him to accept it; and he seems to have discharged it neither better nor worse than an average magistrate. Indeed, he gave sufficient satisfaction to the citizens to be re-elected at the close of his term, and it may be suspected that the honour of the position, which was really one of considerable dignity and importance, was not altogether indifferent to him. Unfortunately, it cannot be said that nothing in his office became him like the leaving of it, for it was at the close of his second tenure that he gave the only sign of the demoralizing effect which is sometimes alleged by severe moralists to come of the half epicurean, half sceptical philosophy which he undoubtedly professed. It was his business, if not exactly his duty, to preside at the formal election of his successor, the maréchal de Matignon; but there was a severe pestilence in Bordeaux, and Montaigne writes to the jurats of that town, in one of the few undoubtedly authentic letters which we possess, to the effect that he will leave them to judge whether his presence at the election is so necessary as to make it worth his while to expose himself to the danger of going into the town in its then condition, “which is specially dangerous for men coming from a good air as he does.” That is to say, the chief magistrate of one of the greatest towns in France not only declined to visit it because of sickness prevailing there, but had left it to itself at a time when nearly half the population perished, and when, according to the manners of the age, civil disturbance was almost sure to follow accordingly. Attempts have been made to justify Montaigne, and it may be at least said that he at no time pretended to unselfish heroism; but it is to be feared that the facts and the inference drawn from them admit of no dispute. At the least, Montaigne’s conduct must be allowed to contrast very little to his advantage with that of Rotrou in the next century under somewhat similar circumstances though in a position of much less responsibility. It may, however, be urged in Montaigne’s favour that the general circumstances of the time, where they did not produce reckless and foolhardy daring, almost necessarily produced a somewhat excessive caution. The League was on the point of attaining its greatest power; the extreme Calvinist and Navarrese party, on the other side, was (as may be seen in Agrippa d’Aubigné) no less fanatical than the League itself, and the salvation of France seemed to lie in the third party oi politiques, or trimmers, to which Montaigne belonged. The capital motto of this party was that of the Scotch saying, “Jouk and let the jaw gang by,” and the continual habit of parrying and avoiding political dangers might be apt to extend itself to dangers other than political. However this may be, Montaigne had difficulty enough during this turbulent period, all the more so from his neighbourhood to the chief haunts and possessions of Henry of Navarre. He was able, however, despite the occupations of his journey, his mayoralty, and the pressure of civil war and pestilence, which was not confined to the town, to continue his essay writing, and in 1588, after a visit of some length to Paris, the third book of the Essays was published, together with the former ones considerably revised. The new essays, as has been remarked, differ strikingly from the older ones in respect of length; there being only one which confines itself to the average of those in the first two books. The whimsical unexpectedness of the titles, moreover, reappears in but two of them: “Des coches” and “Des boiteux.” They are, however, identical with the earlier ones in spirit, and make with them a harmonious whole—a book which has hardly been second in influence to any of the modern world.

This influence is almost equally remarkable in point of matter and in point of form, as regards the subsequent history of thought and as regards the subsequent history of literature. The latter aspect may be taken first. Montaigne is one of the few great writers who have not only perfected but have also invented a literary form. The essay as he gave it had no forerunner in modern literature, and no direct ancestor in the literature of classical times. It is indeed not improbable that it owes something to the body of tractates by different authors and of different dates, which goes under the name of Plutarch’s Morals, and it also bears some resemblance to the miscellaneous work of Lucian. But the resemblance is in both cases at most that of suggestion. The peculiar desultoriness and tentative character of the essay proper were alien to the orderly character of the Greek mind, as were also its garrulity and the tendency which it has rather to reveal the idiosyncrasy of the writer than to deal in a systematic manner with the peculiarities of the subject. It has been suggested that the form which the essays assumed was in a way accidental, and this of itself precludes the idea of a definite model even if such a model could be found. Beginning with the throwing together of a few stray thoughts and quotations linked by a community of subject, the author by degrees acquires more and more certainty of hand, until he produces such masterpieces of apparent desultoriness and real unity as the essay “Sur des vers de Virgile.” In matter of style and language Montaigne’s position is equally important, but the ways which led him to it are more clearly traceable. His favourite author was beyond all doubt Plutarch, and his own explicit confession makes it undeniable that Plutarch’s translator Amyot was his master in point of vocabulary, and (so far as he took any lessons in it) of style. Amyot was unquestionably one of the most remarkable writers of French in the 16th century, and to him more than to any one else is due the beauty of the prose style which marked the second half of that century, a style which, though unequal and requiring to be modified for general use, is at its best the very flower, of the language. Montaigne, however, followed with the perfect independence that characterized him. He was a contemporary of Ronsard, and his first essays were published when the innovations of the Pléiade had fully established themselves. He adopted them to a great extent, but with much discrimination, and he used his own judgment in Latinizing when he pleased. In the same way he retained archaic and provincial words with a good deal of freedom, but by no means to excess. In the arrangement as in the selection of his language he is equally original. There is little or no trace in him of the interminable sentence which is the drawback of early prose in all languages when it has to deal with anything more difficult to manage than mere narrative. He has not the excessive classicism of style which mars even the fine prose of Calvin, and which makes that of some of Calvin’s followers intolerably stiff. As a rule he is careless of definitely rhythmical cadence, though his sentences are always pleasant to the ear. But the principal characteristic of Montaigne’s prose style is its remarkable ease and flexibility. These peculiarities, calculated in themselves to exercise a salutary influence on a language as...