BYRON AND GOETHE BY GIUSEPPE MAZZINI



INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne, the founder of the modern Essay, was
born February 28, 1533, at the chateau of Montaigne in Pirigord. He
came of a family of wealthy merchants of Bordeaux, and was educated
at the College de Guyenne, where he had among his teachers the great
Scottish Latinist, George Buchanan. Later he studied law, and held
various public offices; but at the age of thirty-eight he retired to
his estates, where he lived apart from the civil wars of the time,
and devoted himself to study and thought. While he was traveling in
Germany and Italy, in 1580-81, he was elected mayor of Bordeaux, and
this office he filled for four years. He married in 1565, and had
six daughters, only one of whom grew up. The first two books of his
"Essays" appeared in 1580; the third in 1588; and four years later
he died.

These are the main external facts of Montaigne's life: of the man
himself the portrait is to be found in his book. "It is myself I
portray," he declares; and there is nowhere in literature a volume
of self-revelation surpassing his in charm and candor. He is frankly
egotistical, yet modest and unpretentious; profoundly wise, yet
constantly protesting his ignorance; learned, yet careless,
forgetful, and inconsistent. His themes are as wide and varied as
his observation of human life, and he has written the finest eulogy
of friendship the world has known. Bacon, who knew his book and
borrowed from it, wrote on the same subject; and the contrast of the