NOTES

VOLUME I

Page 69 Florio’s version begins thus: “The most vsuall waie to appease those minds wee have offended when revenge lies in their hands, and that we stand at their mercie, is by submission to move them to commiseration and pity; Nevertheless, courage, constancie, and resolution (means altogether opposite) have sometimes wrought the same effect.” I do not pretend to follow the text of Florio, which is grossly inaccurate and illiterate; I merely furnish a few comparative extracts.

Page 79 This turn of sentiment is noticed elsewhere; and compare Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice.

“BASS. Antonio I am married to a wife,
Which is as dear to me as life itself;
But life itself, my wife, and all the world,
Are not with me esteem’d above thy life;
I would lose all—ay, sacrifice them all
Here to this devil, to deliver you.”

Page 83 A surprise of unexpected joy does likewise often produce the same effect:—

“When she beheld me advancing, and saw, with stupefaction, the Trojan arms around me, terrified with so great a prodigy, she

fainted away at the very sight: vital warmth forsook her limbs: she sinks down, and, after a long interval, with difficulty speaks.”

Aeneid.

Page 179 This essay may be advantageously compared with passages in Hamlet, and Measure for Measure.

Page 186 This was in virtue of an ordinance of Charles IX in 1563. Previously the year commenced at Easter, so that the 1st of January 1563 became the first day of the year 1564.

Page 187 Montaigne speaks of him as if he had been a contemporary neighbor, perhaps because he was Archbishop of Bordeaux. Bertrand le Goth was Pope under the title of Clement V., 1305-14.

Page 195 Montaigne, when he went to Italy, carried his Essays with him, probably for the sake of making additions or corrections, as they occurred to his mind; but in his shorter absences from home he seems to have used tablets for current memoranda, as his English contemporaries did. These tablets are mentioned by Shakespeare in Hamlet.

Page 206 Compare Shakespeare, Hamlet.

“Ham. Denmark’s a prison.

“Ros. Then is the world one.

“Ham. A goodly one: in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one of the worst.

“Ros. We think not so, my lord.

“Ham. Why, then, it’s none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

“Your grandsires saw no other things, nor will your nephews.”

Page 229 The Emperor Claudius, who, however, according to Seutonius, only intended to authorise this singular privilege by an edict.

Page 240 Let us take Florio’s rendering of this curious passage: “My opinion is, that he conveied aright of the force of custome, that first invented this tale, how a countrey-woman, having enured herselfe to cherish and beare a young calfe in her armes, which continuing, shee got such a custome, that when he grew to be a great oxe, shee carried him still in her arms.”

Page 242 Compare Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice.

“Lor. . . . . . Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold,
There’s not the smallest orb which thou beholdest,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims.”

QUOTATIONS

Cicero-97-113-138-139-141-143-184-242-247-272-274. Pliny-241. Horace-120-141-162-183-184-187-189-191-195-202. Aeneid-81-106-115-119-151-168-196. Manlius-205-207. Lucan-101-102-120-139. Livy-271. Martial-120. Ovid-81-174-197-217-233-268. Propertius-161-191. Seneca-83-85-99-180-194-205-276. Virgil-234. Lucretius-90-176-177-185-193-196-197-205-206-208-210-240-261. Catullus-82-193. Mithridates-190-206-208-209. Macrobius-176. Petrarch-82. Aristo-115. Ennius-99-107-172. Florus-106. Curtius Quintus-170. La Brebis-133.

VOLUME II

Page 91 Born at Sarlac in Perigord, 1st November, 1530, died 18th August, 1563. Of his works, all unpublished during his life, there is a complete edition, Paris, 1846. There is a sufficiently copious account of this gentleman in the Memoir and Letters supra. He to some extent forestalled in his economical views Thoreau in his Walden, 1854. Yet both follow the lines of the Natural Philosophers.

Page 179 “It is likely that Montaigne meant Henry III., king of France. The Cardinal d’Ossat, writing to Louise, the queen-dowager, told her, in his frank manner, that he had lived as much more like a monk than a monarch. And Pope Sextus V., speaking of that prince one day to the Cardinal de Joyeuse, protector of the affairs of France, said to him pleasantly, ‘There is nothing that your king hath not done, and does not do so still, to be a monk, nor anything that I have not done, not to be a monk’.”

Montaigne would here give us to understand upon the authority of Diodurus Siculus, that Pausanias’ mother gave the first hint of the punishment that was to be inflicted on her son. ‘Pausanias,’ says this historian, ‘perceiving that the ephori, and some other Lacedæmonians, aimed at apprehending him, got the start of them, and went and took sanctuary in Minerva’s temple; and the Lacedæmonians, being doubtful whether they ought to take him from thence in violation

of the franchise there, it is said that his own mother came herself to the temple, but spoke nothing, nor did anything more than lay a piece of brick, which she brought with her, on the threshold of the temple, which, when she had done, she returned home. The Lacedæmonians, taking the hint from the mother, caused the gate of the temple to be walled up, and by this means starved Pausanias, so that he died with hunger, etc.’ The name of Pausanias’ mother was Alcithea, as we are informed by Thucydides’ scholiast, who only says that it was reported, that when they set about walling up the gates of the chapel in which Pausanias had taken refuge, his mother Alcithea laid the first stone.

“Opinions differ as to the truth of this fact. Livy thinks he has good authority for rejecting it, because it does not appear in history that Posthumius was branded with it, as Titus Manlius was, about 100 years after his time; for Manlius, having put his son to death for the like cause, obtained the odious name of Imperiosus, and since that time Manliana Imperia has been used as a term to signify orders that are too severe; Manliana Imperia, says Livy, were not only horrible for the time present, but of a bad example to posterity. And this historian makes no doubt but such commands would have been actually styled Posthumiana Imperia, if Posthumus had been the first who set so barbarous an example. But, however, Montaigne has Valer. Maximus on his side, who says expressly, that Posthumus caused his son to be put to death, and Diodorus Siculus.

Page 189 Montaigne probably found at least the basis of the material for this paper in three savages, whom Martin Frobisher brought back with him from America in 1577, and of whom there is an account in English, 1577, and in French, 1578. The portraiture of these strange people was appended to the latter, shewing their dress, arms, tents, and boats, and was separately intended to be printed in English, though no longer known. The essayist seems to have seen the unusual visitors at Rouen, where he was in attendance on Charles IX., and he personally conversed with one of them at a somewhat later date. Antoine Jacquard executed a series of twelve engravings, which he entitled: “Les divers Pourtraicts et Figures faictes sur les moeurs des habitans du Nouveau Monde.” These engravings are sometimes misdescribed as the earliest of the kind. But we perceive that they had been anticipated by the Frobisher volume. The elder Cabot, however, long before Frobisher’s time, presented some natives whom he had induced to accompany him from the same continent in 1497 to Henry VII.

Page 199 This is the famous passage which Shakespeare, through Florio’s version, 1603, or ed. 1613, p. 102, has employed in the “Tempest.” It may be interesting in such a case to compare the essayist with the poet:—

MONTAIGNE.

(Book.)

“They (Lycurgus and Plato) could not imagine a genuitie so pure and simple, as we see it by experience, nor ever beleeve our societie might be maintained with so little arte and humane combination. It is a nation, would I answere, Plato, that hath no kinde of traffike, no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politike superioritie; no vse of service, of riches, or of poverty; no contracts, no successions, no dividences, no occupation but idle; no respect of kinred, but common; no apparrell but naturall, no manuring of lands, no vse of wine, corne, or mettle. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulation, covetousness, envie, detraction, and pardon, were never heard of amongst them. How dissonant would hee finde his imaginary commonwealth from this perfection?

Hos natura modos primum dedit.

Nature at first uprise,

These manners did devise.

Furthermore, they live in a country of so exceeding pleasant and temperate situation, that as my testimonies have tolde me it is very rare to see a sicke body amongst them; and they have further assured me, they never saw any man there, shaking with the palsie, toothlesse, with eyes drooping, or crooked and stooping through age.”

SHAKESPEARE.

(Act. ii. Sc. 1.)

GON. I’ the commonwealth I would by

contraries

Execute all things; for no kind of traffic

Would I admit; no name of magistrate;

Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,

And use of service, none; contract, succession,

Bourn, bound of land; tilth, vineyard, none;

No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;

No occupation; all men idle, all;

And women too, but innocent and pure,

No sovereignty—. . .

All things in common nature should produce

Without sweat or endeavour; treason, felony,

Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,

Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,

Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance,

To feed my innocent people.

QUOTATIONS

Cicero-42-44-45-51-54-73-82-85-86-142-144-148-159-161-162-244. Horace-11-81-97-143-151-156-174-175-176-178-192-219-244-250. Juvenal-45-49-101. Mithridates-128-144. Lucan-26-250-252. Lucretius-144-236-255-256. Manlius-250. Livy-25-140. Martial-250. Ovid-240. Virgil-96-139-199. Petrarch-251. Plutarch-21. Persius-48-96-106-108. Propertius-89-97-185-197. Terence-173-175. Seneca-42-50-52-75-77-84-116-126-128-199-210. Aeneid-175-191-251. Catullus-156-176-228-254. Milton-101. Stobasum-50.

VOLUME III

Page 28 “This plodding occupation of bookes is as painful as any other, and as great an enemie vnto health, which ought principally to be considered. And a man should not suffer him selfe to be inveagled by the pleasure he takes in them.”

Page 136 Antonio Iscalin, called Paulin, from the place of his birth, a town in the Albigeois, and who is called in De Thou’s History Antonius Iscalinus Adhemarus (and oftener Adæmarus), Polinius Garda. He took the name of De la Garda from a corporal of that name, who passing one day through Paulin with a company of foot soldiers, took a fancy to him and carried him off with him to make him his boy. He distinguished himself by his wit, valour, and conduct in the several employments which he had, as general of the galleys ambassador to the Porte and to England.

Page 153 In the narrative which Philip de Commines has given of this battle, in which he himself was present, he tells us of wonderful performances by the horse on which the king was mounted. The name of the horse was Savoy, and it was the most beautiful horse he had ever seen. During the battle the king was personally attacked, when he had nobody near him but a valet de chambre, a little fellow, and not well armed. “The king,” says Commines, “had the best horse under him in the world, and therefore he stood his ground bravely, till a number of his men, not a great way from him, arrived at the critical minute.”

QUOTATIONS

Livy-74-93-152-155-157-159-160-162. Ovid-60-103-173. St. Augustine-60-66-91. Juvenal-12-96-137-183-189-210-250. Mithridates-86-102-111-137-159-165-172-203-235-242. Manlius-150. Persius-15-27-31-32-102-178-222-223. Quintilian-22-117-126. Horace-14-15-23-26-31-38-97-98-101-103-104-106-177-204-224-226-234-238-239-247-249-252. Lucretius-16-59-99-100-101-105-114-174-194-195-230-235-248-261. Cicero-34-56-63-68-69-74-85-89-137-236-243-262. Catullus-79. Aeneid-38-135-137-156-159-162-172-262-264. Seneca-40-62-80-100-110-245. Lucan-48-139-140-157-162-223. Virgil-249. Martial-163-172-175-177-203. Terence-190-261.

VOLUME IV

Page 83 The mother of one of the gentlemen who accompanied Montaigne to Italy in 1580.

Page 96 It used to be a frequent practice in Scotland to defer marriage to this age, the country being poor, and a man being unable, till he had reached that time of life, to support a household.

Page 109 Madame de Sevigne tells us that she never read this passage without tears in her eyes. “My God!” she exclaims, “how full is this book of good sense!”

Page 163 Rousseau, in his Emile, book v., adopts this passage almost in the same words. Montaigne was not so well known at that time. Yet, could he have been aware of the loan, he would have been the last man to resent it.

Page 193 Raymond de Sebonde, or Sebon, or Sabaude, or Sebeyde, as he was variously named,

was a professor of medicine, philosophy, and theology at Toulouse, about 1430. The work was first printed at Daventer about 1484.

Page 247 Georgius Trapexuntius, or George of Trebizond, born 1396, died 1486; a learned translator of and commentator upon Aristotle and other authors.

Page 259 Remora, “delay, hindrance.” This story about Antony is, of course, a fable, arising from the ignorant superstition which prevailed among the ancients, and even, as Montaigne shows, down to a much later period, respecting the power of this adhesive fish.

QUOTATIONS

Aristo-226. Terence-93-104. Manlius-213-220-221. Propertius-136. Quintilian-202. St. Augustine-223. Tasso-60-95-227. Horace-17-71-98-142-169-175-181-214-270. Lucretius-18-48-54-62-65-195-207-220-226-232-234-237-238-270. Catullus-140. Aeneid-16-23-63-64-127-174-187-200-272-280. Mithridates-19-221-223-238. Seneca-13-17-23-164-186-223. Lucan-18-55. Juvenal-47-48-178-190-244-254-269. Virgil-48-144-229-269-272-273. Martial-17-18-78-142-257. Livy-80-94-127. Ovid-49-62-67-126-187-189-198-267.

VOLUME V

Page 31 “This was Lucretius who, in the verses preceding this period, speaks so pompously of Epicurus and his doctrine: for a love potion that was given him by his wife or his mistress, so much disturbed his reason, that

the violence of his disorder only afforded him a few lucid intervals, which he employed in composing his book, and at last made him kill himself.”

Page 46 This appears to be Thrasyllus, the celebrated Athenian military and naval commander, fifth century bc

Page 218 Ptolemy was then, and long after, accounted the highest geographical authority; but the inaccuracy of his astronomical knowledge, betrayed him into an erroneous theory of the relations of the members of the Cosmos.

Page 251 A present which the scholars gave their master at the Fair of Landy, held yearly at St. Dennis, by institution of King Dagobert in 629.

QUOTATIONS

Ennius-20-92. Manlius-161. Persius-94. Propertius-17. St. Augustine-53-121-126-134-143-176. Tactius-53. Juvenal-27-229-230-242. Virgil-151-162-178-212. Martial-246. Livy-39-131-143-270. Ovid-19-21-132-133-136-192-193-230-238-267-268. Lucan-123-124. Seneca-19-44-47-80-82-173-177. Mithridates-16-41-44-120-129-151-153-168-170-171-255-256-262. Aeneid-95-131-132-241-272. Horace-26-29-45-46-47-126-131-142-204-232. Cicero-25-32-33-42-43-44-53-54-57-58-64-66-67-71-72-87-93-120-121-130-132-138-141-154-160-171-174-177-190-193-196-208-209-227-232-243-270. Lucretius-15-21-31-44-47-48-53-58-61-73-93-151-152-153-162-163-164-165-167-169-171-172-180-199-214-218-254-256-262-264-272-274-275-276-277-279-286. Catullus-205. Dryden-37. Petrarch-187. Valerius Saranus-85.

VOLUME VI

Page 63 The play, however, was called the “Ransom of Hector.” It was the games at which it was acted that were called Leneian; they were one of the four Dionysiac festivals.

Page 130 The character of the Emperor Julian was censured, when Montaigne was at Rome in 1581, by the Master of the Sacred Palace, who, however, as Montaigne tells us in his Journal, referred it to his conscience to alter what he should think in bad taste. This Montaigne did not do, and this chapter supplied Voltaire with the greater part of the praises he bestowed upon the Emperor.

Page 241 Ostracism at Athens was banishment for ten years; petalism at Syracuse was banishment for five years.

QUOTATIONS

Aristo-36. Persius-40-42-44-109-120. Propertius-17-83-84-201. Quintilian-39. St. Augustine-121. Tacitus-55. Tasso-182. Cicero-32-33-34-37-38-49-52-86-88-95-103-110-141-214. Catullus-139-158. Horace-14-16-30-37-42-54-61-67-75-76-78-79-84-104-115-120-170-194. Lucretius-15-71-75-109-137. Aeneid-46-47-225-228-257. Mithridates-165. Seneca-13-14-21-48-81-83-138-139-194-195-227. Lucan-51. Juvenal-27-45-77-85-105-157-171-193-216-217. Virgil-17-71-181. Martial-14-61-74-100-122-166-170. Livy-38-142-147-153. Ovid-13-16-17-20-40-52-64-139-173-218. Terence-16-83-95-102.

VOLUME VII

Page 26 Gaspard de Coligny, who fell in the St. Bartholomew massacre 24th August, 1572.

Page 80 A term used by the Languedoc waggoners to hasten their horses.

Page 98 A sound opinion and piece of advice, which are not even yet generally appreciated. Certain callings are more prone to this disease from the want of opportunities for relieving nature.

Page 114 Marguerite de Grammont, widow of Jean de Durfort, Seigneur de Duras, who was killed near Leghorn, leaving no posterity. Montaigne seems to have been on terms of considerable intimacy with her, and to have tendered her some very wholesome and frank advice in regard to her relations with Henry IV.

Page 138 Between the King of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., and the Duc de Guise.

Page 142 An able negotiator, who, though protected by the Guises, and strongly supporting them, was yet very far from persecuting the Reformists. He died 1577.

Page 150 An Indian sage who lived in the time of Alexander the Great.

Page 154 A picked body of troops in the Macedonian army, carrying silver-plated shields.

Page 235 The corresponding passage in Florio’s version is:—“If your affection in love be over-powerful, disperse or dissipate the same, say they; and they say true, for I have often with profit made trial of it; break it by virtue of several desires, of which one may be regent or chief Master, if you please; but for fear it should misuse and tyrannise you, weaken it with dividing, and protract it with diverting the same.”

QUOTATIONS

Manlius-47. Persius-236. Propertius-46-167-245. Quintilian-192. Tacitus-30-214. Cicero-65-66-129-140-149-163-166-175-200-212-229-234. Horace-19-47-133-176-205. Lucretius-47-123-137-236-239-240. Aeneid-17-53-54-67-83-123-233. Mithridates-127-149-Seneca-61-123-150-174-199-222. Lucan-14-18-51-124-126-166-181. Juvenal-81-207-224. Virgil-33-125. Martial-36-63-103. Livy-141-165-213-229. Terence-135.

VOLUME VIII

Page 84 Compare with this passage Henri Estienne’s Precellence du Langage Francois and his Conformite du Langage Francois avec le Grec, of which two works M. Leon Feugere has published an edition, with notes.

Leo the Jew, Ficinus, Cardinal Bembo, and Mario Equicola all wrote Treatises on Love.

Page 197 So Hobbes said that if he had read as much as the academical pedants he should have known as little.

QUOTATIONS

Ennius-52. Propertius-64. Quintilian-81. St. Augustine-69. Tacitus-226. Cicero-115-144-146-150-190-196-219-227. Catullus-35-47-62-63-75-100-103-111-116-132. Horace-46-56-91-111-112-119-126-127-129-130-154-184-213. Lucretius-28-75-80-156. Aeneid-28-29-64-80-112-212. Mithridates-20-62-63-69. Seneca-22-81-107-120-135-196-197-226. Juvenal-29-39-42-72-122-207. Virgil-11-31-47-52-62-95-132-213. Martial-11-13-44-69-102-128-153-210. Livy-104-137. Ovid-12-17-41-61-62-78-97-104-113-224. Terence-78-94-119-203.

VOLUME IX

Page 12 It was not Diomedes, but Didymus the grammarian, who, as Seneca tells us, wrote four (not six) thousand books on questions of vain literature, which was the principal study of the ancient grammarian.

Page 33 Liard, a small coin of base silver, at this time worth a few pence of English money.

Page 82 This debauch evidently means the diversion of travel, which is the subject of so large a portion of this essay; not debauch in its ordinary sense.

Page 98 Montaigne refers to the society of Synapothanoumenes, “bands of those who would die together,” formed by Antony and Cleopatra after the battle of Actium.

Page 117 Saturninus, one of the thirty tyrants in the time of the Emperor Gallienus. Trebellius Pollio, two ephemeral rulers of this name are recorded, of whom this one, a general under Valerian and Probus, involuntarily usurped the empire under Gallienus.

Page 119 Capets, so called from their short capes, were the students of Montaigne College at Paris, and were held in great contempt.

Page 186 By the adoption of the Gregorian calendar.

Page 190 Voltaire says of this passage, “He who would learn to doubt should read this whole chapter of Montaigne, the least methodical of all philosophers, but the wisest and the most amiable.”

Page 198 That is of Admiration. “She (Iris, the rainbow) is beautiful, and for that reason,

because she has a face to be admired, she is said to have been the daughter of Thaumus.”

QUOTATIONS

Persius-91-189. Propertius-108-243. Quintilian-50-144-242. St. Augustine-193. Catullus-116-221-268. Horace-16-17-26-32-42-46-48-79-105-129-130-141-146-153-176-228-235-245. Lucretius-17-22-95. Cicero-18-26-30-39-50-60-79-99-104-105-109-127-169-177-179-184-190-193-200-204-217-227-244-257. Aeneid-23-35-45-61-74-105-109-121-142-169-220-267. Mithridates-183-240. Seneca-22-28-104-106-123-128-140-146-152-165-194-214-215-217-219-220-231-244-245. Lucan-44-68-115-211. Juvenal-34-111-112-120. Virgil-25-35-69-70-165-176-186-208-222-226-236-242. Martial-112. Livy-159-191-203-225-233-270. Ovid-67-68-78-130-138-220-226. Terence-42-59-62-80-263. Curtius Quintus-106-157-194. Maximus, Valerius-59. Tertulian-131.

VOLUME X

Page 22 Calepin (Ambrogio da Calepio), a famous lexicographer of the fifteenth century. His Polyglot Dictionary became so famous, that Calepin became a common appellation for a lexicon.

Page 44 Suetonius says in this Life of Tiberius that this emperor, after he was thirty years old, governed his health without the aid of physicians; and what Plutarch tells is, in his essay on the Rules and Precepts of Health, is that Tiberius said that the man who, having attained sixty years, held out his pulse to a physician was a fool. This might be the

origin of the adage: A man is a fool or a physician at fifty; but the term of life varies in different authorities.

Page 131 This is translated freely from that prefixed to the variorum Paris edition 1854. This biography is the more desirable that it contains all the really interesting and important matter in the Journal of the Tour in Germany and Italy, which, as it was merely written under Montaigne’s dictation, and is in the third person, is scarcely worth publication, as a whole, in an English dress.

QUOTATIONS

Macrobius-49. Manlius-11. Propertius-29. Quintilian-16-65. St. Augustine-128. Tacitus-13. Catullus-61. Horace-45-61-87-92-109-113-130. Cicero-35-38-98-114-118-124-125. Aeneid-33-40-85-123. Seneca-15-58-67-86-91-92-120-123-127. Lucan-30-36-123. Juvenal-53-89. Virgil-38. Martial-42-62. Ovid-61-67-71-88.