to him in tranquil seclusion."

At the time to which we have come, Montaigne was unknown to the world of
letters, except as a translator and editor. In 1569 he had published a
translation of the "Natural Theology" of Raymond de Sebonde, which he had
solely undertaken to please his father. In 1571 he had caused to be
printed at Paris certain 'opuscucla' of Etienne de la Boetie; and these
two efforts, inspired in one case by filial duty, and in the other by
friendship, prove that affectionate motives overruled with him mere
personal ambition as a literary man. We may suppose that he began to
compose the Essays at the very outset of his retirement from public
engagements; for as, according to his own account, observes the President
Bouhier, he cared neither for the chase, nor building, nor gardening, nor
agricultural pursuits, and was exclusively occupied with reading and
reflection, he devoted himself with satisfaction to the task of setting
down his thoughts just as they occurred to him. Those thoughts became a
book, and the first part of that book, which was to confer immortality on
the writer, appeared at Bordeaux in 1580. Montaigne was then
fifty-seven; he had suffered for some years past from renal colic and
gravel; and it was with the necessity of distraction from his pain, and
the hope of deriving relief from the waters, that he undertook at this
time a great journey. As the account which he has left of his travels in
Germany and Italy comprises some highly interesting particulars of his
life and personal history, it seems worth while to furnish a sketch or
analysis of it.

"The Journey, of which we proceed to describe the course simply," says
the editor of the Itinerary, "had, from Beaumont-sur-Oise to Plombieres,
in Lorraine, nothing sufficiently interesting to detain us . . . we
must go as far, as Basle, of which we have a description, acquainting us