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MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE, born in Périgord, France, 1533, died 1592.

"Montaigne's Essays' are among the most re

markable of literary productions. Absolutely

without order, method, or indeed anything like intelligible purpose, they have yet exercised an influence, particularly on French and English literature, greater perhaps than that of any other

single book we could name. Several of his critics have suffered their indignation against the confusion of the whole book' to carry them a great way further than was necessary; for, indeed, it is partly this want of formal arrangement that gives to the Essays' their peculiar excellence. It is quite impossible to convey an adequate notion of their unrestrained vivacity, energy, and fancy, of their boldness and attractive simplicity. They range over every subject connected with human life and manners; abound in observations-often most felicitously expressed-of great depth and acuteness, and never fail to entertain with their constant eagerness and gaiety. It is not too much to say that they supply the mind with at once the books contains."-REV. ROBERT MARTIN: Imperial Dict. of Univ. Biog., v., 1866, 434.

best stimulus and recreation which the world of

OF THE INCONVENIENCE OF GREATNESS. Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it; and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever. It has in general this manifest advantage, that it can grow less when it pleases, and has very near the absolute choice of both the one and the other condition. For a man does not fall from all heights; there are several from which one may descend without falling down. It does indeed appear to me that we value it at too high a rate, and also overvalue the resolution of those whom we have either seen or heard have contemned it, or displaced themselves of their own accord. Its essence is not evidently so commodious that a man may not without a miracle refuse it: I find it a very hard thing to undergo misfortunes; but to be content with a competent measure of fortune, and to avoid greatness, I think a very easy matter. Tis, methinks, a virtue to which I, who am none of the wisest, could, without any great endeavour, arrive. What, then, is to be expected from them that would yet put into consideration the glory attending this refusal, wherein there may lurk worse ambition than even in the desire itself and fruition of greatness? Forasmuch as ambition never comports itself better according to itself than when it proceeds by obscure and unfrequented ways, I incite my courage to patience, but I rein it as much as I can towards desire.

I have as much to wish for as another, and

allow my wishes as much liberty and indiscretion; but yet it never befell me to wish for either empire or royalty, for the eminency of those high and commanding fortunes. I do not aim that way; I love myself too well. When I think to grow greater, 'tis but very moderately, and by a compelled and timorous advancement, such as is proper for me, in resolution, in prudence, in health, in beauty, and even in riches too.

But this supreme reputation, and this mighty authority, oppress my imagination ; and, quite contrary to some others, I should, peradventure, rather choose to be the second or third in Perigourd than the first in Paris. I would neither dispute a miserable unknown with a nobleman's porter, nor make crowds open in adoration as I pass. I am trained up to a moderate condition, as well as by my choice as fortune; and have made it appear in the whole conduct of my life and enterprises that I have rather avoided of fortune wherein God has placed me by my than otherwise the climbing above the degree birth: all natural constitution is equally just and easy. My soul is so sneaking and mean that I measure not good fortune by the height, but by the facility. But if my heart be not great enough, 'tis open enough to make amends at any one's request freely to lay open its weakness. Should any one put me upon comparing the life of L. Thorius Balbus, a brave man, handsome, learned, healthful, understanding, and abounding in all sorts of conveniencies and pleasures, leading a quiet life, and all his own; his mind well prepared against death, superstition, pains, and other incumbrances of human necessity; dying at last in battle with his sword in his hand, for the defence of his country, on the one part; and on the other part, the life of M. Regulus, so great and as high as is known to every one, and his end admirable; the one without name and without dignity, the other exemplary and glorious to a wonder: I should doubtless say, as Cicero did, could I speak as well as he. But if I was to touch it in my own phrase, I should then also say, that the first is as much according to my capacity and desire, which I conform to my capacity, as the second is far beyond it; that I could not approach the last but with my veneration, the other I would willingly attain by custom. But let us return to our temporal greatness, from which we have digressed. I disrelish all dominion, whether active or passive. Otanes, one of the seven who had a right to pretend to the kingdom of Persia, did as I should willingly have done; which was, that he gave up to his concurrents his right of being promoted to it, either by election or by lot, provided that he and his might live in the

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE.

empire out of all authority and subjection, those of the ancient laws excepted, and might enjoy all liberty that was not prejudicial to them, as impatient of commanding as of being commanded. The most painful and difficult employment in the world, in my opinion, is worthily to discharge the office of a king. I excuse more of their mistakes than men commonly do, in consideration of the intolerable weight of their function, which does astonish me. 'Tis hard to keep measure in so immeasurable a power. Yet so it is, that it is, to those who are not the best-natured men, a singular incitement to virtue to be seated in a place where you cannot do the least good that shall not be put upon record; and where the least benefit redounds to so many and where your talent of administration, like that of preachers, does principally address itself to the people, no very exact judge, easy to deceive, and easily content. There are few things wherein we can give a sincere judgment, by reason that there are few wherein we have not in some sort a particular interest.

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give it them, and who will not rather betray his own glory than offend theirs; and will therein employ so much force only as is necessary to advance their honour. What share have they, then, in the engagement wherein every one is on their side? Methinks I see those paladins of ancient times presenting themselves to jousts, with enchanted arms and bodies. Crisson, running against Alexander, purposely missed his blow, and made a fault in his career; Alexander chid him for it, but he ought to have had him whipped. Upon this consideration, Carneades said that the sons of princes learned nothing right but to ride the great horse; by reason that in all their exercises every one bends and yields to them; but a horse that is neither a flatterer nor a courtier, throws the son of a king with no more remorse than he would do that of a porter. Homer was compelled to consent that Venus, so sweet and delicate as she was, should be wounded at the battle of Troy, thereby to ascribe courage and boldness to her; qualities that cannot possibly be in those who are exempt from danger. The gods are made to be angry, to fear, to run away, to be jealous, to grieve, and to be transported with passions, to honour them with the virtues that amongst us are built upon these imperfections. Who does not participate in the hazard and difficulty can pretend no interest in the honour and pleasure that are the consequents of hazardous actions. 'Tis a pity a man should be so potent that all things must give way to him. Fortune therein sets you too remote from society, and places you in too great a solitude. The

Superiority and inferiority, dominion and subjection, are bound to a natural envy and contest, and must necessarily perpetually intrench upon one another. I neither believe the one nor the other touching the rights of the adverse party: let reason, therefore, which is inflexible and without passion, determine. 'Tis not a month ago that I read over two Scotch authors contending upon this subject; of which he who stands for the people makes kings to be in a worse condition than a carter; and he who writes for monarchy places him some degrees above God Almighty in power and sover-easiness and mean facility of making all eignty.

Now the inconveniency of greatness, that I have made choice of to consider in this place, upon some occasions that has lately put it into my head, is this: there is not peradventure anything more pleasant in the commerce of men than the trials that we make against one another, out of emulation of honour and valour, whether in the exercises of the body or in those of the mind; wherein the sovereign greatness can have no true part. And in earnest I have often thought, that out of force of respect men have used princes disdainfully and injuriously in that particular. For the thing I was infinitely offended at in my childhood, that they who exercised with me forbore to do their best because they found me unworthy of their utmost endeavour, is what we see happen to them every day, every one finding himself unworthy to contend with them. If we discover that they have the least passion to have the better, there is no one who will not make it his business to

things bow under you is an enemy to all sorts of pleasure. This is to slide, not to go: this is to sleep, and not to live. Conceive man accompanied with omnipotency, you throw him into an abyss: he must beg disturbance and opposition as an alms. His being and his good is indigence. Their good qualities are dead and lost; for they are not to be perceived but by comparison, and we put them out of it; they have little knowledge of the true praise, having their ears deafed with so continued and uniform an approbation. Have they to do with the meanest of all their subjects? They have no means to take any advantage of him, if he say, 'Tis because he is my king, he thinks he has said enough to express that he therefore suffered himself to be overcome. This quality stifles and consumes the other true and essential qualities. They are involved in the royalty, and leave them nothing to recommend themselves withal, but actions that directly concern themselves, and that merely respect the function of their place.

"Both Don Quixote and Sancho are thus brought before us like such living realities that, at this mo ment, the figures of the crazed, gaunt. dignified

esquire dwell bodied forth in the imaginations of more, among all conditions of men throughout Christendom, than any other of the creations of human talent. The greatest of the great poetsHomer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton-have no doubt risen to loftier heights, and placed themselves in more imposing relations with the noblest attributes of our nature; but Cervantes-always writing under the unchecked impulse of his own genius, and instinctively concentrating in his fiction whatever was peculiar to the character of his nation-has shown himself of kindred to all times and all lands; to the humblest degrees of cultivation as well as to the highest; and has thus, beyond all other writers, received in return a tribute of sympathy and admiration from the universal spirit of humanity."-TICK NOR: Hist. of Spanish Lit., 3d Amer. edit., Boston, 1863, ii. 146: Second Part of The Don Quixote.

DESCRIPTION OF DON QUIXote.

'Tis so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so; the strange lustre that environs him conceals him and shrouds him from us; our sight is there repelled and dis-knight and of his round, selfish, and most amusing sipated, being stopped and filled by this prevailing light. The senate awarded the prize of eloquence to Tiberius: he refused it, supposing that, though it had been just, he could derive no advantage from a judgment so partial, and that was so little free to judge. As we give them all advantages of honour, so do we soothe and authorize all their vices and defects, not only by approbation, but by imitation also. Every one of Alexander's followers carried their heads on one side, as he did; and the flatterers of Dionysius ran against one another in his presence, stumbled at and overturned whatever was underfoot, to show that they were as purblind as he. Natural imperfections have sometimes also served to recommend a man to favour. I have seen deafness affected; and because the master hated his wife, Plutarch has seen his courtiers repudiate theirs, whom they loved; and which is yet more, uncleanness and all manner of dissoluteness has been in fashion; as also disloyalty, blasphemies, cruelty, heresy, superstition, irreligion, effeminacy, and worse, if worse there be. And by an example yet more dangerous than that of Mithridates' flatterers, who, by how much their master pretended to the honour of a good physician, came to him to have incision and cauteries made in their limbs; for these others suffered the soul, a more delicate and noble thing, to be cauterized. But to end where I begun: the Emperor Adrian disputing with the philosopher Favorinus about the interpretation of some word, Favorinus soon yielded him the victory, for which his friends rebuking him,-"You talk simply," said he;"would you not have him wiser than I, who commands thirty legions?" Augustus wrote verses against Asinius Pollio, and I, said Pollio, say nothing, for it is not prudence to write in contest with him who has power to proscribe; and he had reason for Dionysius because he could not equal Philoxenus in poesy, and Plato in discourse, condemned one to the quarries, and sent the other to be sold for a slave into the island of Ægina.

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
SAAVEDRA,

author of Don Quixote, was born at Alcata
de Henares, 1547, entered the order of Fran-
ciscan friars April 2, 1616, and died April
23 of the same year. His Don Quixote was
first published at Madrid,-Part I. 1605,
small 4to; Part II. 1615, small 4to.

Down in a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to recollect, there lived, not long ago, one of those gentlemen who usually keep a lance upon a rack, an old buckler, a lean horse, and a coursing greyhound. Soup, composed of somewhat more mutton than beef, the fragments served up cold on most nights, lentils on Fridays, pains and breakings on Saturdays, and a pigeon, by way of addition, on Sundays, consumed three-fourths of his income; the remainder of it supplied him with a cloak of fine cloth, velvet breeches, with slippers of the same for holidays, and a suit of the best homespun, in which he adorned himself on week-days. His family consisted of a housekeeper above forty, a niece not quite twenty, and a lad who served him both in the field and at home, who could saddle the horse or handle the pruning-hook. The age of our gentleman bordered upon fifty years; he was of a strong constitution, spare-bodied, of a meagre visage, a very early riser, and a lover of the chase. Some pretend to say that his surname was Quixada, or Quesada, for on this point his historfans differ; though, from very probable conjectures, we may conclude that his name was Quixana. This is, however, of little importance to our history: let it suffice that, in relating it, we do not swerve a jot from

the truth.

Be it known, then, that the afore-mentioned gentleman, in his leisure moments, which composed the greater part of the year, gave himself up with so much ardor to the perusal of books of chivalry, that he almost wholly neglected the exercise of the chase, and even the regulation of his domestic affairs; indeed, so extravagant was his zeal in this pursuit, that he sold many acres of arable

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES.

land to purchase books of knight-errantry; collecting as many as he could possibly obtain. Among them all none pleased him so much as those written by the famous Feliciano de Silva, whose brilliant prose and intricate style were, in his opinion, infinitely precious; especially those amorous speeches and challenges in which they so much abound, such as: "The reason of the unreasonable treatment of my reason so enfeebles my reason, that with reason I complain of your beauty." And again: "The high heavens that, with your divinity, divinely fortify you with the stars, rendering you meritorious of the merit merited by your greatness." These and similar rhapsodies distracted the poor gentleman, for he laboured to comprehend and unravel their meaning, which was more than Aristotle himself could do, were he to rise from the dead expressly for that purpose.

He was not quite satisfied as to the wounds which Don Belianis gave and received; for he could not help thinking that, however skilful the surgeons were who healed them, his face and whole body must have been covered with seams and scars. Nevertheless, he commended his author for concluding his book with the promise of that interminable adventure; and he often felt an inclination to seize the pen himself and conclude it, literally as it is there promised: this he would doubtless have done, and with success, had he not been diverted from it by meditations of greater moment, on which his mind was incessantly employed.

He often debated with the curate of the village, a man of learning, and a graduate of Siguenza, which of the two was the best knight, Palmerin of England or Amadis de Gaul; but Master Nicholas, barber of the same place, declared that none ever came up to the knight of the sun; if, indeed, any one could be compared to him, it was Don Galaor, brother of Amadis de Gaul, for he had a genius suited to everything: he was no effeminate knight, no whimperer, like his brother; and in point of courage he was by no means his inferior. In short, he became so infatuated with this kind of study that he passed whole days and nights over these books; and thus, with little sleeping, and much reading, his brains were dried up and his intellects deranged. His imagination was full of all that he had read:-of enchantments, contests, battles, challenges, wounds, courtships, amours, tortures, and impossible absurdities; and so firmly was he persuaded of the truth of the whole tissue of visionary fiction, that, in his mind, no history in the world was more authentic. The Cid Ruy Diaz, he asserted, was a very good knight, but not to be compared

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with the knight of the flaming sword, who, with a single back-stroke, cleft asunder two fierce and monstrous giants. He was better pleased with Bernardo del Carpio, because, at Roncesvalles, he slew Roland the enchanted, by availing himself of the stratagem employed by Hercules upon Anteus, whom he squeezed to death within his arms. He spoke very favourably of the giant Morganti, for although of that monstrous breed who are always proud and insolent, he alone was courteous and well bred. Above all he admired Rinaldo de Montalvan, particularly when he saw him sallying forth from his castle to plunder all he encountered; and when, moreover, he seized upon that image of Mohamet which, according to history, was of massive gold. But he would have given his housekeeper, and even his niece into the bargain, for a fair opportunity of kicking the traitor Galalon.

Adventures of Don Quixote, Jarvis's Translation, Lond., 1742, 2 vols. 4to, Book I. Chapter I.

CAPTURE OF MAMBRINO'S HELMET.

About this time it begun to rain a little, and Sancho proposed entering the fullingmill; but Don Quixote had conceived such an abhorrence of them for the late jest, that he would by no means go in: turning, therefore, to the right hand they struck into another road, like that they had travelled through the day before. Soon after, Don Quixote discovered a man on horseback, who had on his head something which glit tered as if it had been of gold; and scarcely had he seen it when, turning to Sancho, he said, "I am of opinion there is no proverb but what is true, because they are all sentences drawing from experience itself, the mother of all the sciences; especially that which says, 'Where one door is shut another is opened.' I say this because, if fortune last night shut the door against what we sought, deceiving us with the fulling-mills, it now opens wide another, for a better and more certain adventure; in which, if I am deceived, the fault will be mine, without imputing it to my ignorance of fulling-mills or to the darkness of night. This I say because, if I mistake not, there comes one towards us who carries on his head Mambrino's helmet, concerning which thou mayest remember I swore the oath." "Take care, sir, what you say, and more what you do," said Sancho; for I would not wish for other fulling-mills, to finish the milling and mashing our senses." "The devil take thee !" replied Don Quixote: "what has a helmet to do with fulling-mills?" "I know not," answered Sancho, "but in faith, if I might

with such speed that the wind could not overtake him.

talk as much as I used to do, perhaps I could give such reasons that your worship would see you are mistaken in what you The basin he left on the ground: with Bay.' "How can I be mistaken in what I which Don Quixote was satisfied, observing say, scrupulous traitor?" said Don Quixote. that the pagan had acted discreetly, and in "Tell me, seest thou not yon knight coming imitation of the beaver, which, when closely towards us on a dapple-gray steed, with a pursued by the hunters, tears off with his helmet of gold on his head?" "What I see teeth that which it knows by instinct to be and perceive," answered Sancho, "is only a the object of pursuit. He ordered Sancho man on a gray ass like mine, with something to take up the helmet; who, holding it in on his head that glitters." "Why, that is his hand, said, "Before Heaven, the basin is Mambrino's helmet," said Don Quixote; "re- a special one, and is well worth a piece o' tire, and leave me alone to deal with him, | eight, if it is worth a farthing." İle then and thou shalt see how, in order to save gave it to his master, who immediately time, I shall conclude this adventure with-placed it upon his head, turning it round in out speaking a word, and the helmet I have search of the vizor; but not finding it, he so much desired remain my own." "I shall said, "Doubtless the pagan for whom this take care to get out of the way," replied famous helmet was originally forged must Sancho; "but Heaven grant, I say again, it have had a prodigious head,-the worst of may not prove another fulling-mill adven- it is that one half is wanting." When Santure." "I have already told thee, Sancho, cho heard the basin called a helmet, he could not to mention those fulling-mills, nor even not forbear laughing; which, however, he think of them," said Don Quixote: "if thou instantly checked on recollecting his masdost, I say no more, but I vow to mill thy ter's late choler. "What dost thou laugh at, soul for thee!" Sancho held his peace, fear- Sancho?" said Don Quixote. "I am laughing lest his master should perform his vow, ing," answered he, "to think what a huge which had struck him all of a heap. head the pagan had who owned that helmet, which is for all the world just like a barher's basin." "Knowest thou, Sancho, what I conceive to be the case? This famous piece, this enchanted helmet, by some strange accident must have fallen into the possession of one who, ignorant of its true value as a helmet, and seeing it to be of the purest gold, hath inconsiderately melted down the one half for lucre's sake, and of the other made this, which, as thou sayest, doth indeed look like a barber's basin; but to me, who know what it really is, its transformation is of no importance, for I will have it so repaired in the first town where there is a smith, that it shall not be surpassed nor even equalled by that which the god of smiths himself made and forged for the god of battles. In the mean time, I will wear it as I best can, for something is better than nothing; and it will be sufficient to defend me from stones." "It will so," said Sancho, "if they do not throw them with slings, as they did in the battle of the two armies."

Now the truth of the matter concerning the helmet, the steed, and the knight which Don Quixote saw, was this. There were two villages in that neighbourhood, one of them so small that it had neither shop nor barber, but the other adjoining to it had both; therefore the barber of the larger served also the less, wherein one customer now wanted to be let blood, and another to be shaved; to perform which the barber was now on his way, carrying with him his brass basin; and it so happened that while upon the road it began to rain, and to save his hat, which was a new one, he clapped the basin on his head, which being lately scoured was seen glittering at the distance of half a league; and he rode on a gray ass, as Sancho had affirmed. Thus Don Quixote took the barber for a knight, his ass for a dapplegray steed, and his basin for a golden helmet; for whatever he saw was quickly adapted to his knightly extravagances; and when the poor knight drew near, without staying to reason the case with him, he advanced at Rozinante's best speed, and couched his lance, intending to run him through and through but, when close upon him, without checking the fury of his career, he cried out, "Defend thyself, caitiff! or instantly surrender what is justly my due." barber, so unexpectedly seeing this phantom advancing upon him, had no other way to avoid the thrust of the lance than to slip down from the ass; and no sooner had he touched the ground than, leaping up nimbler than a roebuck, he scampered over the plain

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