wrote journals of travel in
quest of health and pleasure. But these are chiefly void of interest.
Montaigne the Essayist alone is emphatically the Montaigne that
survives. "Montaigne the Essayist,"--that has become, as it were, a
personal name in literary history.

The "Essays" are one hundred and seven in number, divided into three
books. They are very unequal in length; and they are on the most various
topics,--topics often the most whimsical in character. We give a few of
his titles, taking them as found in Cotton's translation:--

That men by various ways arrive at the same end; Whether the
governor of a place ought himself to go out to parley; Of liars; Of
quick or slow speech; A proceeding of some ambassadors; Various
events from the same counsel; Of cannibals; That we laugh and cry
from the same thing; Of smells; That the mind hinders itself; Of
thumbs; Of virtue; Of coaches; Of managing the will; Of cripples;
Of experience.

Montaigne's titles cannot be trusted to indicate the nature of the
essays to which they belong. The author's pen will not be bound. It runs
on at its own pleasure. Things the most unexpected are incessantly
turning up in Montaigne,--things, probably, that were as unexpected to
the writer when he was writing, as they will be to the reader when he is
reading. The writing, on whatever topic, in whatever vein, always
revolves around the writer for its pivot. Montaigne, from no matter what
apparent diversion, may constantly be depended upon to bring up in due
time at himself. The tether is long and elastic, but it is tenacious,
and it is securely tied to Montaigne. This, as we shall presently let
the author himself make plain, is no accident, of which Montaigne was
unconscious. It is the express idea on which the "Essays" were written.
Montaigne, in his "Essays," is a pure and perfect egotist, naked, and
not ashamed. Egotism is Montaigne's note, his _differentia_, in the
world of literature. Other literary men have been egotists--since. But
Montaigne may be called the first, and he is the greatest.

Montaigne was a Gascon, and Gasconisms adulterate the purity of his
French. But his style--a little archaic now, and never finished to the
nail--had virtues of its own which have exercised a wholesome influence
on classic French prose. It is simple, direct, manly, genuine. It is
fresh and racy of the writer. It is flexible to every turn, it is
sensitive to every