d so philosophically
that little trace of his trials is apparent in his writings. His
father, who is said to have been of English descent, took special
pains with his early education, having had him taught Latin by a
German tutor before he learnt French, so that before he "left his
nurse's arms" he was a master of the ancient tongue and knew not a
word of his own. The first two of the three books of his celebrated
"Essays" were published in 1581 and the third in 1588. In 1582 he
visited Italy and was made a Roman citizen, and the next year he
was chosen Mayor of Bordeaux. Always a lover of books and a student
of men, his writings are a rich mine of scholarly wit and worldly
wisdom, consummate in the naturalness that conceals literary art.
Like most works of the time, they contain passages which modern
taste does not approve, but, taken as a whole, they are among the
most interesting of books of the kind.

_I.--Of Death, and How It Findeth a Man_

I was born between eleven of the clock and noon, the last of February,
1533, according to our computation, the year beginning on January 1. It
is but a fortnight since I was thirty-nine years old. I want at least as
much more of life. If in the meantime I should trouble my thoughts with
a matter so far from me as death, it were but folly. Of those renowned
in life I will lay a wager I will find more that have died before they
came to five-and-thirty years than after.

How many means and ways has death to surprise us! Who would ever have
imagined that a Duke of Brittany should have become stifled to death in
a throng of people, as whilom was a neighbour of mine at Lyons when
Pope Clement made his entrance there? Hast thou not seen one of our late
kings slain in the midst of his sports? and one of his ancestors die
miserably by the throw of a hog? AEschylus, fore-threatened by the fall
of a house, when he was most on his guard, was struck dead by the fall
of a tortoise-shell from the talons of a flying eagle. Another was
choked by a grape-pip. An emperor died from the scratch of a comb,
AEmilius Lepidus from hitting his foot against a door-sill, Anfidius from
stumbling against the door as he was entering the council chamber. Caius
Julius, a physician, while anointing a patient's eyes had his own closed
by death. And if among these examples I may add one of a brother of
mine, Captain St. Martin, playing at t