s common to all
my race, and indeed to others also; there are two families at Paris and
Montpellier, whose surname is Montaigne, another in Brittany, and one in
Xaintonge, De La Montaigne. The transposition of one syllable only would
suffice so to ravel our affairs, that I shall share in their glory, and
they peradventure will partake of my discredit; and, moreover, my
ancestors have formerly been surnamed, Eyquem,--[Eyquem was the
patronymic.]--a name wherein a family well known in England is at this
day concerned. As to my other name, every one may take it that will, and
so, perhaps, I may honour a porter in my own stead. And besides, though
I had a particular distinction by myself, what can it distinguish, when I
am no more? Can it point out and favour inanity?

"Non levior cippus nunc imprimit ossa?
Laudat posteritas! Nunc non e manibus illis,
Nunc non a tumulo fortunataque favilla,
Nascentur violae?"

["Does the tomb press with less weight upon my bones? Do comrades
praise? Not from my manes, not from the tomb, not from the ashes
will violets grow."--Persius, Sat., i. 37.]

but of this I have spoken elsewhere. As to what remains, in a great
battle where ten thousand men are maimed or killed, there are not fifteen
who are taken notice of; it must be some very eminent greatness, or some
consequence of great importance that fortune has added to it, that
signalises a private action, not of a harquebuser only, but of a great
captain; for to kill a man, or two, or ten: to expose a man's self
bravely to the utmost peril of death, is indeed something in every one of
us, because we there hazard all; but for the world's concern, they are
things so ordinary, and so many of them are every day seen, and there
must of necessity be so many of the same kind to produce any notable
effect, that we cannot expect any particular renown from it:

"Casus multis hic cognitus, ac jam
Tritus, et a medio fortunae ductus acervo."

["The accident is known to many, and now trite; and drawn from the
midst of Fortune's heap."--Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 9.]

Of so many thousands of valiant men who have died within these fifteen
hundred years in France with their swords in their hands, not a hundred
have come to our knowledge. The memory, not of the commanders only, but
of battles and victories, is buried and gone; the fortunes