America and England the ethics of public opinion | considerable, but we cannot say that the We have been tempted already too far in the way of extract, but the value of the quotations given will form a sufficient excuse. We have but touched the outskirts of a subject of profound interest to "all who profess and call themselves Christians," and especially to preachers, and we have by no means done justice to the merits of this volume. It is simply full of valuable thought and suggestion, and is animated throughout by the noblest religious feeling. DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE.* THE remark which naturally occurs to the critic of such a work as this, is that the subject is too vast to admit of any but a vague and general treatment. The history of democracy in Europe might be so handled as to include almost the whole of European history, for it is impossible to treat effectively of political institutions without touching upon the religious and social institutions alongside of which they flourished. How can you write the history of democracy in Europe that is to say, of the development of free government-without giving an account, to specify only a single class of topics,-of the political revolutions which have occurred in the several European countries, whether in ancient or in modern times? And how vast would the compass of the work be which should treat, in anything like an adequate manner, of the political revolutions of Sparta, Athens, Thebes, Macedonia, Rome, England, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, and Spain! Sir Erskine May might have brought his undertaking within somewhat more manageable bounds if he had confined his survey to democracy in the strict sense of the predominance of the popular element in governing institutions. He has judiciously endeavoured to do this to some extent, but practically he has found it necessary to treat of "political liberties and franchises" in general. He remarks in his preface that there are as many degrees and conditions of democracy as of liberty, and that the term comprehends the influence of the people under all forms of government. The enormous range of the subject thus becomes obvious, and in proportion to the wideness of its range will be the difficulty of attaining precision and freshness in its treatment. Sir Erskine's success has been Democracy in Europe: A History. By Sir Thomas Erskine May, K.C.B., D.C.L., author of The Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George III." Two vols, Longmans, Green, and Co. 1877. Price 328, long the wisdom of the nation will preserve its equipoise." In his preface the author gives, in few Sir Erskine May seems to be of words, his "profession of political faith," opinion that the chief danger to offering it as a pledge of the spirit in which freedom is at present exposed in which he writes history. "I hail," he Europe is that of Communistic revolusays, "the development of popular tion. He touches upon the influences power as an essential condition of the which tend to check this subversive force, social advancement of nations; I am an among others upon the "ecclesiastical ardent admirer of political liberty-of revival" which has occurred both on the rational and enlightened liberty, such as Continent and in England since 1830. most Englishmen approve; and I con- The Church of Rome "has recovered demn any violation of its principles, much of her former power in France, in whether by a despotic king, or by an Spain, in Belgium, and in Southern Gerill-ordered Republic." In an introduc-many." But no trust is to be placed in tion of considerable length he discusses resuscitated Romanism as an ally of freethe moral, social, and physical causes dom and an opponent of revolution. of freedom, glances at the contrast pre- Exploded dogmas, childish miracles, sented by the political institutions of absurd pilgrimages, denunciations of Asia to those of Europe, inquires into the modern science and progress, cannot action of public opinion, remarks upon permanently impress the European mind. the chief dangers to which reasonable "A Church which teaches in the spirit freedom is at present exposed, and con- of the eleventh century, and spurns the cludes with a modest indication of the highest intelligence of an advancing political probabilities of the future. In society, cannot exercise an enduring inthis important essay, he maintains that fluence over the political development of politics "form the main education of a Europe, while it repels many earnest people." To engage rationally in politics friends of liberty." In England the is to discuss whatever concerns the State Church has similarly revived. Sir government of the State, "religion, poli- Erskine May lauds it for its zeal in tical science, history, the laws, the social all good works, but warns the clergy condition of the people, and the diplo- against the Laudian peculiarities which macy of foreign Powers." Can such study, they are too much disposed to cultihe asks, fail to be enlightening? Politics vate. Touching upon the infidelity surpass all other studies "in the interest which, in these days, if not very prethey excite, and the earnestness with valent, is at least very loud, he declares which they are pursued." Books may that it is only in France that democracy be read with listlessness or tedium, but has been associated with unbelief. "In public affairs stimulate the faculties with England the public liberties were maina more potent excitement. "Freedom," tained in the seventeenth century by says Sir Erskine May, "is the best of the Puritans, the most devout of all national schoolmasters." The history classes of Englishmen. . . . Throughof the world may be appealed to in out the history of Europe, since the support of this statement. Reformation, in France, in the NetherWe are not sure but Sir Erskine May lands, in Germany, in Hungary, political will find that he has exposed himself liberties have owed much to the Calto the charge of being almost pedanti- vinists, the severest school of Protestant cally devoted to the political institutions Reformers." He is extremely denunof Great Britain. For our part, we are ciative of the Communists, whose agitanot inclined to be severe upon him, for tion, in the Internationale and otherwise, we deliberately believe that England is, has alarmed many. He maintains that on the whole, more favoured in political the Communistic schemes would, if respects than any other country. Sir carried into effect, produce "adespotism Erskine May can justly maintain that we exceeding any known in the history possess that balance of powers and of the world," and debasing to the classes which Aristotle, Cicero, Tacitus, character of man. We have our doubts, and other great thinkers looked upon as however, whether Communists would the ideal perfection of political institu- admit that Sir Erskine May gives a fair tions. He quotes the saying of Tacitus, account of their system. He sees it only that it is easier to praise such an equi- on its weak and vulnerable side. He is poise of powers than to bring it about, confident, however, that the powers enand that, when it has been attained, it is listed on the side of orderly freedom will difficult to perpetuate, and adds Lord be able to repress the excesses of revoActon's comment on the remark of the lutionary democracy. "It should be the shrewd historian. "The experiment," aim of enlightened statesmen," he obsays Lord Acton, "has been tried more serves in conclusion, "to prepare sooften than I can tell, with a combination ciety for its increasing responsibilities, of resources that were unknown to the to educate the people, to train them in ancients-with Christianity, Parliamen- the ways of freedom, to entrust them tary Government, and a free Press. Yet with larger franchises, to reform the laws, there is no example of such a Constitution and to bring the government of the having lasted a century. If it has succeeded State into harmony with the judgment anywhere, it is in our favoured country, of its wisest citizens." We propose to and in our time, and we know not yet how I return to these important volumes. SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.* IN 1676, while Shaftesbury, the Achitophel of Dryden, was carrying on an unequal war with the gay and graceless Chailes who, for our sins and to our eternal shame, ruled the land, the lady of a Norfolk baronet presented her husband with a son. Already Lady Walpole had blessed her jovial lord with four pledges of connubial love. Robert, the subject of Mr. Ewald's uncalled-for biography, since he has nothing new to tell us, was born on the 26th of August, nor was he the last. In nearly annual succession, fourteen brothers and sisters followed him into the world. Amongst all of them, however, there was not one of them could rival our hero in fame and power. The Walpoles, like most respectable families, traced their pedigree to the Conquest, but the baronetcy had not been held very long. Amongst the loyal county gentlemen who cheered Monk's speech in the Convention Parliament, and madly voted for an unconditional restoration of monarchy, was Walpole's grandfather, then member for Lynn Regis. As a recompense for his zeal, he was made a Knight of the Bath. Disgusted with the conduct of James II., Robert, the eldest son of Sir Edward, declined to walk in the steps of his sire, and sided with that great historic party which could in after time boast the victories of a Marlborough and the wisdom of a Somers, and to whom undoubtedly we owe our Protestant Constitution in Church and State. As Member for Castle Rising he was an M.P., and did his duty, but his heart was with his bullocks at Houghton. His farm was the best managed in the county, and dealers far and near came to buy. In London he appears to have led a frugal life, dining for eighteen pence, spending eightpence in Nottingham ale, a drink to which he appears to have been much attached, and occasionally giving " Bob," his afterwards celebrated son, five shillings; but in the country he kept open house. At his feasts, we need not add, temperance was not the rule. "Come, Robert," said the father, "you shall drink twice while I drink once, for I will not permit the son in his sober senses to be a witness to the intoxication of his father." The habits of sociability then contracted were undoubtedly a great help to Walpole in after life. The Nottingham ale and the Norfolk air seem to have qualified the lad to act the man on a scale such as few men have acted it since in English history. He was the first of the Prime Ministers. It was not, as Mr. Ewald tells us, until the rise of Sir Robert Walpole that the Prime Minister began to be regarded as the recognised leader of Sir Robert Walpole. A Political Biography, 1676 1745. By Alex Charles Ewald, Author of The Life of Prince Charles," "Life and Times of Algernoon Sydney." London: Chapman and Hall. Price 18s.. It is clear his party-the responsible adviser of the I never improve, and that Walpole will in The year 1700 was to Walpole an important one. In it he married Catherine, daughter of Sir John Shorter, not Shuter, as Mr. Ewald says, a woman, according to Mr. Coxe, of exquisite beauty and accomplishments, an heiress as well. Soon after the father died, and the son inherited the family estate of £2,000 a year, and embarked in public life as member for Castle Rising. In the same Parliament Walpole's old schoolfellow and future implacable antagonist took his seat as rember for Wootton Bassett. For him the prospect was fair. In the new Parliament the Tories had a predominance, and Harley, his friend, was in the chair. Walpole's maiden speech was a failure; but it was a failure Another young man had risen that night of the kind which ensured success. to make his maiden speech, and had been much applauded. "You may applaud the one," said Arthur Mainwaring, "and ridicule the other as much as you please, but depend upon it that the spruce gentleman who made the set speech will of the fatal results that would follow from declaring that returning officers at elections irresponsible. were After this, the Whigs came into power, and Walpole passed from the Admiralty to the Secretaryship at War-a post held by his old Eton rival, St. John; but his career was Dr. Sacheverell, which, on the part of the cut short by that foolish prosecution of Whigs, was more than a crime; it was a blunder-a blunder which placed the Tories in office, which enabled them to vote that Walpole had been guilty of a high breach of trust and notorious corruption, and which enabled them to send him to the Tower. His imprisonment lasted till 1713. Much of his time seems to have been spent in aiding Steele in composing political pamphlets. In the Parliament that met in 1714 Walpole took his seat as Member for King's Lynn, in time to see the Tories routed by the death of Queen Anne, and the appearance of George I. upon the scene. "What a world this is, and how does fortune baffle us," wrote St. John to Swift. "There is the best cause in Europe lost for want of spirit," exclaimed Atterbury, in the bitterness of disappointed ambition and intrigue. In the new Parliament Walpole moved the address which breathed vengeance against the late Ministry, and as chairman of committee he drew up the Articles of Impeachment. In October, 1715, he was rewarded by being made First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and this office he sustained till George I. quarrelled with Townshend about his son, and Walpole resigned. with the two great faults of Walpole-his Out of office, says Mr. Ewald, we meet intense selfishness and his boundless ambition; the fact was, out of office he did as much mischief as he could to his opponents, and we believe such is the rule in political life, and has ever been so. History, writes Mr. Ewald, affords many examples of political apostacy, but I of the scheme was the fall of Sunderland, I parent of renewed venality. Now what is the and the elevation of Walpole in his va- most open Jacobites-who attacked its authority, and strenuously opposed the quadruple alliance that had been formed at the instigation of France." This is Mr. Ewald's bill of indictment. It seems to us simply to show that Walpole did his duty according to the light of his day. It was mean, perhaps, to enter the Government holding an inferior office; but Walpole was born for office, and it was quite as well that he returned to power. When every one had been ruined by the South Sea Scheme, "it was felt," writes Mr. Ewald, that if the country could be saved from financial collapse there was only one man capable of restoring public credit. Walpole was summoned to London to undertake the arduous task of calming the tempest and arranging chaos." "Everybody longs for you in town," writes the Under-Secrctary at War, having no hopes from any but yourself; though I must own I do not see what effectual help can be given them till some time has worn off people's fears and distrusts of one another. They all cry out for you to help them, so that when you come you will have more difficulties on you than ever you had. For though you are perfectly clear of this sad scheme, yet you will be prodigiously importuned by all the sufferers to do more than any man can do, and more than you in your judgment would think ought to be done if it could be done." One result of the collapse mittee of twenty-one members-his bitter enemies appointed after his fall, commissioned to lay a siege to his past life equal to the siege of Troy, produced no details of bribery, no specific facts to support the confident allegations of Walpole's powerful and inveterate enemies? It does seem marvellous that if bribery was SO systematic, and corruption SO shameless and notorious; if electors were unduly influenced to so novel and extraordinary a degree; that the specific instance of those misdeeds on if fraudulent contracts were granted so lavishly, the part of a fallen and most unpopular minister should be so very meagre, and supported by such imperfect proofs. When one recollects what other ministers, the predecessors of Walpole, had so recently done, the shameful bribes which had been taken by Cabinet ministers, by Sunderland, and Aislabie, and Craggs, for the furtherance of the Southsea scheme; and when one reads the report of that committee, the bitter enemies of Walpole, their horror at his attempts on the virtue of the Mayor of Weymouth, their indignation that in order to secure a favourable returning officer, he had promised the mayor a place in the Revenue; that he had committed the shocking atrocity of dismissing some excise date, one cannot help smiling at the virtuous officers who voted against the Government candirage of the incensed patriots who seem like the graces in Rabelais, after having swallowed windmills for their daily meal, to have been choked by a pound of butter." And now we lay down a biography which was utterly needless, inasmuch as it tells us nothing but what we have already in the dull and artless pages of Coxe. Publishers are to be censured when they suffer such books as Ewald's "Sir Robert Walpole to appear. Walpole and the Dissenters. Walpole, ever mindful of the clerical storm raised by the Sacheverel prosecution, had no intention of courting the hostility of the Church by supporting the claims of its hereditary foes. To all the petitions and demands of the Dissenters, he ever gave an evasive answer, and fed them with the hopes that make the heart sick. At last a stout Nonconformist divine, one Dr. Chandler, craved an interview with the Prime Minister, and again and again mentioned the grievances of his THE PRINCE OF ESSAYISTS.* body. Walpole returned his stock answer-the theA LIBRARY edition of Montaigne's Essays time had not come; they must wait a more favourable opportunity; he had their best in- is a recognised deficiency in our modern terests at heart, and the other usual evasions of literature. There is an excellent edition polite refusal. But the divine determined to brook in three volumes now out of print, these official insinuations no longer. You have which is based on that of Cotton, and so repeatedly returned us this answer," he said, "that I trust you will give me leave to ask when which is an improvement on his version, the time will come." Iritated at this importunity, as Cotton's was an advance on the and sick of the subject, Walpole replied shortly, earliest translation made by Florio, an "If you require a specified answer I will give it Italian refugee who settled in England you in one word, 'Never!" " during the reign of James I., and who was for some time French and Italian tutor to Prince Henry. This version of Florio is necessarily imperfect. The text of Montaigne was at that time very incorrect. It was not, in fact, till the edition of Mademoiselle de Gournay, of 1635, that Montaigne's "Gasconisms were rendered into classical French, the quotations verified, and the work, in fact, dressed up into a shape intelligible to It is time we should hear the last of Walpole's amours, and of the fat mistresses of the Georges. We may safely assume that there was a good deal of immorality in high life then as now. Mr. Ewald, who follows exactly Archdeacon Coxe-save when now and then he adds a blunder of his own-has much to say on the subject which might have been left unsaid. What is more pertinent and a little fresher is Sir Robert Peel on Walpole. "You attribute Walpole's success mainly to corruption?" wrote Sir Robert Peel to the late Earl Stanhope. "You consider the revival of expiring and almost extinguished corruption to have been the strength, and that it should be the an educated French reader. It was from this improved version that Charles Cotton, a Derbyshire gentleman, who lived in the reign of Charles II., and who inscribed his version to George Essays of Montaigne. Translated by Charles shame of Walpole. You assume that public men here, again, Mr. Cotton and Mr. Hazlitt, Savill, Marquis of Halifax, presented the considering that pains of this kind are Essays for a second time in an English not paid either by praise or pudding, dress. Mr. Cotton succeeded, as the meal or malt, we must say that transsubsequent editor who has modestly conlators are, on the whole, the best abused cealed his name admits, to a miracle in and the most unmercifully criticised of his translation of so celebrated a piece. men. They are a kind of costermonger's But as Cotton admits in his preface, the donkey, whom any one may belabour; language of the original was in many and if it is to Lord Shaftesbury's eternal places so ungrammatical and abstruse On the whole, then, Mr. Hazlitt would honour that he has become the costerthat, though he understood French as well have done better if he had not attempted monger's friend, and taken their donkey as any man, he had sometimes been forced to patch up a version so faulty as under his patronage, is there no peer to grope for his meaning. In 1724 Mr. Cotton's, but struck out for himself, who knows what the pains of a transPeter Coste, a French writer, undertook or at least used the excellent trans-lator are who will take them under his a further revision of Montaigne, and it lation of Peter Coste's version. Take patronage? As bishops, it is said, are was this third and revised edition which the opening of the eighth chapter, on the only beings who improve by translawas subsequently done into English, and idleness, which is one of Montaigne's tion, perhaps he may commend this dewhich is the basis of the library editions most characteristic pieces. Peter Costes' serving class of books to the kind patronin English, the ninth of which was pub- translation is excellent. "As we see, age of the Bench. There are many sublished for the trade in 1811. Since that some lands that have lain fallow, if the jects of less importance on which the date we are not aware of anything like a soil is fat and fertile, produce innumer- Upper House of Convocation waste critical edition of Montaigne's essays in able sorts of wild herbs that are good much precious time. English till the present version, which is for nothing from want of being cultivated We now pass from this topic to the based on that of Cotton, but so revised and sown with certain seeds proper for subject of Montaigne himself. If not and amended throughout as almost to our service." Cotton renders it: "As the prince of essayists, he is the first. deserve the name of a new version. we see some grounds that have long The essay, properly so called, dates from The besetting sin, as Mr. Hazlitt justly lain idle" (fallow is the correct idiom, Montaigne. Unconsciously he was the remarks, of both Montaigne's translators, from the French oisif)," when grown rank inventor of a new style; he struck out in Florio and Cotton, was a propensity for and fertile by rest, to abound with and a new vein precisely because he did not reducing his language and phraseology spend their virtue in the product of in- aim at it. In a word, he produced a to the language and phraseology of the numerable sorts of weeds and wild herbs work of genius, since in writing he was age and country to which they belonged, that are unprofitable and of no whole- profoundly unconscious or without that and, moreover, inserting paragraphs and some use." Neither version has caught self-consciousness, which is only a form words not here and there only, but con- the exact force of the French foisonner, of talent, and which marks the descent stantly and habitually, from an evident which is the swarming or spontaneous from the golden to the silver age of inteldesire and view to strengthen or eluci- growth, whether in animal or vegetable lect. Genius is never better defined than date their author's meaning. This is life. Ill weeds grow apace "has by Goethe's simile of the star-ohne hast, very true. Mr. Cotton's version is full passed into a proverb, but the force of ohne rast-restless but unhasting; it rises of faults of this kind. But the amended the original is missed in both cases. by a kind of resistless might, as if inversion which was translated afresh from Cotton, again, is inaccurate in render-herent in it; it shapes itself and moves in the accurate French text of Peter Coste, ing parler de memoire as "to speak its own orbit, as if it were a law unto of 1724, was a much better basis to take, from memory in chapter ix. What itself; and at the same time it does this and we cannot help regretting that Mr. Montaigne means and says is that "there so apparently without effort that, as has Hazlitt, when about it, did not dispense is not a man whom it would so ill become been said of Plato in his most ideal altogether with Cotton's version as to boast of memory as myself." This is flights— well as Florio's, and either translate the version of Peter Cortes' translator, the work de novo, or at least adopt and is excellent and spirited. We can as his basis the amended version of only, then, repeat our regrets that this the three-volume edition of which the version, and not Cotton's, had been made translator has with great modesty with- the basis on which Mr. Hazlitt proheld his name. It seems to us that this ceeded to work. With some small corversion of last century is as great an ad-rections it would have been easily vance on the Cottonian as that is on the earliest version of Florio. Take, for instance, Montaigne's opening phrase, which has been so often quoted"C'est icy un livre de bonne foy lecteur." Cotton, and after him Mr. Hazlitt, render it, "Reader, thou hast here an honest book;" but this is not his true meaning. The translator of Peter Coste's text renders it much better as a book altogether without guile. What Montaigne means is, that his book is written in good faith-written, that is, without any ulterior end or aim. Montaigne, in fact, wrote these essays as all true works of genius are produced, under a kind of blind impulse which he could no more give an account of than Shakspere could say how he minted Hamlet, or Shelley wrote the song of the skylark. He goes on, it is true, to explain that he wrote it for the particular benefit of his Gascon kinsfolk and friends; and brought down to the vernacular of our We have said enough of the editor and of "We cannot see The stirring of his wings, and yet he soars." Talent, on the other hand, is impulsive; moves by fits and starts, and needs a spur of some kind to prick the sides of its intent, and often finding no other than vaulting ambition, it "o'erleaps itself, and falls on the other side." It is this unconsciousness of genius which is its most delightful attribute and its unerring mark. And this leads us to notice Montaigne's characteristic quality which entitles him to rank as a man of genius. He has been called a great "egotist," but if we might coin a word to mark a distinction not without a difference, we should call him an " "egoist." Egotism and egoism thus differ as the two forms of phosphorusthe amorphous red phosphorus and the ordinary yellow, which is poisonous. Adhering to our metaphor, we should describe the one as a poison, the other as innocuous, if not positively salutary. Egotism is self-conscious, and, like that false shame which, so far from being a spur to virtue, is rather the mark of latent vice. Egoism, on the other hand, if full of self, is so in the way that a child is, which is not aware that there is any other centre of the universe than itself. All things revolve round it; for it the sun shines, the stars twinkle, and the lambs frisk. Wordsworth, himself the most egoistic of poets, saw this attribute of the little child, and mourned that it must soon come down from the mount where it bas seen God, from whom it came as a fountain from its source. thoughts sleep if I sit still; my fancy does not go by itself, as when my legs move it: and all those who study without a book are in the same condition. The figure of my study is round, and has no more flat wall than what is taken up by table and my chairs; so that the remaining parts of the circle present me a view of all my books at once, set up upon five degrees of shelves round about me. It has three noble and free prospects, and is sixteen paces diameter. I am not so continually there in winter; for my house is built upon an eminence, as its name imports, and no part of it is so much expos'd to the wind and weather as that, which pleases me the better, for being of a painful access, and a little remote, as well upon the account of exercise, as being also there more retir'd from the crowd. 'Tis there that I am in my kingdom, as we say, and there I endeavour to make myself an absolute monarch, and to sequester this one corner from all society both conjugal, filial, and civil. Elsewhere I have but verbal authority only, and of a confus'd essence. That man in my opinion is very miserable, who has not at home where to be by himself, where to entertain himself alone, Ambition or to conceal himself from others. sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping themselves always in shew, like the statue of a publick place. Magna servitus est magna fortuna."-Seneca de Consol. ad Polyb. c. 26. "A great fortune is a great slavery." They have not so much as a retirement for the necesI have thought nothing so severe in the austerity of life that our churchmen societies; namely, to have a perpetual society of place by rule, and numerous assistants amongst them in every action whatever; and think it much more supportable to be always alone, than "So I turned to myself, and I answered myself is to undervalue the muses, to make use of them never to be so. If anyone shall tell me, that it only for sport, and to pass away the time; I shall tell him, that he does not know the value of sport and pleasure so well as I; if I forbear to add further, that all other end is ridiculous. I live from hand to mouth, and, with reverence be it spoken, I only live for my self; to that all my designs do tend, and in that terminate. I studied self a little wiser; and now for my diversion, when young for ostentation; since, to make my but never for any profit. A vain and prodigal humour I had after this sort of furniture, not only for the supplying my own need and defects, but moreover for ornament and outward show, I have since quite bereav'd myself of. Books have many charming qualities to such as know how to choose them. But every good has its ill; 'tis a pleasure that is not pure and clean, no more than others: it has its inconveniences, and great ones, too. The mind indeed is exercised by it, but the body, the care of which I must withal never neglect, remains in the mean time without action, grows heavy and stupid. I know no excess more prejudicial to me, nor more to be avoided in this my declining age. These are my three beloved, and particular occupations; I speak not of those I owe to the world by civil obligations. Thou little child yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke. The egotist is painfully self-conscious, and is always seeking to conceal this disease of selfishness. He resorts to a hundred artifices to cover up his selfobtrusion. He has begun the clothes philosophy, naked and ashamed he uses words to conceal his thoughts, affects a modesty he is far from feeling, and trims his own brushwood, as Horace calls it, that no one else should do it for him. The egoist on the other hand has none of this mock modesty which is such a transparent artifice. He carries out the lines of the epitaph in a Suffolk church-sities of nature. yard on the gravestone of Robert Crytoft. "As I walked to myself I talked to myself, Look to thyself and take care of thyself, In the self same reverie, Look to myself or look not to myself, The self-same thing will be." Montaigne was an egoist of this kind. He was a solitary, like one of Wordsworth's Westmoreland shepherds, whom he so often idealised. He lived in his old Gascon château, which we may leave him to describe in his own words: For it is not to be imagin'd to what degree I please myself, and rest content in this consideration, that I have them by me, to divert myself with them when I am so dispos'd, and to call to mind what an ease and refreshment they are to my life. 'Tis the best viaticum I have yet found out for this human journey, and very much lament those men of understanding who are unprovided of them. And yet I rather accept of any other sort of diversion, how slight soever, because this can never fail me. When at home, I a little more frequent my library, from whence I at once survey all the whole concerns of my family: 'tis situated at the entrance into my house, and I thence under me see my garden, court, and base-court, and into all the parts of the building. There I turn over now one book, and then another, of various subjects, without method or design: one while I meditate, another I record, and dictate as I walk to and fro, such whimsies as these I present you here. 'Tis in the third story of a tower, of which the ground room is a withdrawing room and closet, where I often lie my chappel, the second story an apartment with to be more retir'd. Above it is a great wardrobe, which formerly was the most useless part of the house. I there pass away both the most of the days of my life, and most of the hours of those days. In the night I am never there. There is affect, as what I have observ'd in some of their In Montaigne's case it is delightful to follow this old gossip upon self. As Dame Quickly rambles on from one external topic to another, so Montaigne dislikes. He sat down, in fact, to write from one point of his personal likes and a diary less gossipping than that of old Pepys, less gazette-like than Evelyn's, and the world has seized it and claimed it as its own. Already on its first abroad, and that, like other prophets and There are essayists-"A.H.K.B." shall be our example-who, if they had known when to stop, might have done something to place themselves, if not in the same rank as Montaigne, at least on a slope of the hill of fame whose summit he crowns. But, unfortunately for their fame, they have so written themselves out that their last essays are only watered-down effusions from a tap at best not strong. Happily for Montaigne, for copy, and ready to take anything there were no magazine editors waiting with the magic initials, " M. de M." The result was that, as he was the man of one book, that volume grew in bulk and wealth of illustration at every reprint. Old Piutarch, that prince of classical tion. Anecdote poured in on anecdote, gossips, was ransacked for fresh illustratill Montaigne, to borrow an old joke, may be said to have died, not of dotage, but anecdotage. He tells what meats and drinks he liked; that he hated fogs; that he managed to be out of the way at supper-time, as he did not wish to spoil his breakfast next morning; and that he feasted on fish when other people fasted. His excuse for his egoity is an amusing proem to a chapter on repentance. Montaigne's Egoism. Others form man, I only report him, and represent a particular one, ill-fashion'd enough; and whom if I had to model anew, I should certainly make him something else than what he is : of my picture alter and change, 'tis not however but that's past recalling. Now, tho' the features unlike. The world eternally turns round, all things therein are incessantly moving, the earth, the rocks of Caucasus, and the pyramids of slower and more languishing motion. I cannot Egyyt, both by the publick motion, and their own. Even constancy itself is no other but a fix my object, 'tis always tottering and reeling by a natural giddiness. I take it as it is at the instant I consider of it. I do not paint its being, I paint its passage, not a passing from one age to to minute. I must accommodate my history to seven years; but from day to day, from minute the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention: 'tis a counterpart solute imaginations, and, as it falls out, someof various and changeable accidents, and irretimes contrary: whether it be that I am then another self, or that I take subjects by other circumstances and considerations; so it is that I within it a cabinet handsome and neat enough, impression, for Montaigne tells us that another, or, as the people say, from seven to with a fire-place very commodiously contriv'd, and light very finely fitted. And was I not more afraid of the trouble than the expence, the trouble that frights me from all business, I could very easily adjoyn on either side, and on the same floor, a gallery of an hundred paces long, and twelve broad, having found walls already rais'd for some other design, to the requisite height. Every place of retirement requires a walk. My the first editions were printed in Gas- |