ing, or other indications would serve to ascertain if the epigraph were or were not contemporary with Montaigne.

The mention of the five tiers of shelving has naturally suggested to our painstaking friends an inquiry after the books which once filled them. For though the shelves are there, and the mottoes on the rafters above them are dimly visible, the books are gone. Dr. Payen has here had wonderful success. He has traced or recovered upwards of thirty volumes which were in the possession of Montaigne, and contain his autograph, or other notes. The history of his twenty years' siege and final capture of Montaigne's 'Cæsar' forms of itself a little epic, which we read in the Débats' not long since (Journal des Débats, Mars, 1856), and which is too glad to talk of Montaigne's 'Cæsar,' since the other Cæsar is interdicted ground. It tells how M. Parison, the distinguished bibliophile, who, with an income of 2507. a-year, left behind him the astonishing collection of books which has just been dispersed by public auction, picked up the Cæsar' in one of the quais bookstalls; how he guarded it five years-not thirty-five, as the Débats exaggerate-without breathing the existence of the treasure-how, in 1837, Dr. Payen, the chief of the Montaignologues,' got scent of its existencehow he laid siege to M. Parison's citadel on the fourth floor of a house on the Quai des Augustins, by a series of dedications, notes, allusions sometimes flattering sometimes caustic, till the final triumph in 1838, when the stubborn possessor surrendered at discretion, yielded up the 'Cæsar,' took to his bed, and died. Had we space we would not so curtail this bibliographical episode. The Cæsar,' after all, is not devoid of interest even for our purpose. It is the Antwerp edition (ex Officinâ Plantinianâ) of 1570. Montaigne had noted on it, as he did in all the books he read, the time occupied in reading it. He commenced reading the three books, De Bello Civili,' on February 25, and finished the De Bello Gallico' July 21st, in the year 1578. After the Anno Domini he has added 44-45-figures which indicate his age at the time of reading, his birthday being, as will be remembered, February 28. The marginal notes, of which there are upwards of 600, do not offer much of quotable interest. But in the minute care with which it was read, and the fact that it was read continuously between February and July, we gain some light upon Montaigne's method of using books. All his reading was not of the desultory kind we might infer from what he says of it in the Essays:- Je feuillette à cette heure un livre, à cette heure une auttre, sans ordre, et sans dessein, à pièces descousues '(iii. 3). He could, we see, at the time he was writing his Essais,' begin a book, and return to it day after day till

it was read through. In the last page he has written, in his small and fine hand, a short appreciation of the book and its author. This was his usual custom when he had finished a work. He adopted it, he says (ii. 10), to meet the extreme treachery of his memory. This was so great that it had happened to him more than once to take up a volume which he had carefully read a few years before as if it was a new book. On comparison of the appreciation of Cæsar,' which occupies thirtysix lines of close writing, with the 34th chapter of the 2nd book of the Essais,' we find that the essay is a greatly improved development of the annotation. Indeed, it is more than improved. The judgment passed on 'Cæsar' in the annotation is imperfect, and fails in doing justice to him. In the essay Montaigne rises to a far higher elevation, and indicates a much more matured point of view. Now, the aperçu, as we have seen, was written in 1578. The Essays' were published in 1580. Thus we gather that it was not Montaigne's habit to dismiss a book from his thoughts when he had finished it and recorded sentence on it. It might continue to occupy his meditations and grow upon his thoughts. The casual and discontinuous turning over of books, he tells of, was the external aid to a methodical and solid process of digestion.

The duties, whatever they were, of Gentleman in ordinary to the bedchamber' were the only ones which Montaigne ever discharged at court. Difficulties still uncleared surround this function. Its date is uncertain, and we know not how to reconcile it with Montaigne's own assertion that he had never received from any prince a double' either as wages or freegift. Leaving these interesting nauds to the discussion of the biographer that is to come, we have to speak of the great question of the secretaryship. For many years all the lives and eloges of Montaigne had repeated that he at one time filled the office of secretary to the Queen Dowager Catherine de Medicis. This would have changed the complexion of his life indeed, and would have of itself turned the scale decisively in favour of M. Grün's views. This mistake, for such it is, and nothing more, arose from the negligent, assumptive habits of the literary biographers. There is preserved a letter of instruction from the Queen addressed, so it is indorsed in the MS. copy preserved in the Bibliothèque Impériale (collection Dupuy), Au roy Charles IX. peu après sa majorité.' It is a piece of no little curiosity in itself. It belongs, indeed, to general history, and is as widely known as the farewell letter which another Medicis addressed to his young twelve year-old cardinal (afterwards Leo X.). But it concerns us at present, not by its contents, but by a postscript

a postscript of three lines as follows:- Monsieur my son, do not take it amiss that I have made Montaigne write out this letter; I did it that you might read it better.-Catherine.'

This letter made its first appearance in print in Le Laboureur's additions to the Memoirs of Castelnau,' in 1659. Which of Montaigne's biographers may claim the credit of having transported the new fact' into Montaigne's biography we have not ascertained. But before the beginning of the present century Montaigne's Secretariate to the Queen had become an accredited event. One of them, M. Jay, comments thus:-Those who have studied the character and manners of Catherine de Medicis, and who have read with attention the reflections of Montaigne himself on the rights and duties of princes, will easily recognise that the "Avis" are the composition of Montaigne himself.' Thus history made itself as it went on through the hands of slipshod litterateurs. From copyist, Montaigne became author, of Catherine's letter. But as soon as a discerning eye was directed to the evidence on which the Secretariate' rested, it was seen at a glance that the identification of the amanuensis of the 'Avis' with the essayist was a pure conjecture. And the indefatigable labours of Dr. Payen have brought to light the existence of a François Montaigne, Secretary in Ordinary of the Chamber of the King and the Queen-Mother. M. Grün devotes fifteen pages to the correction of this error. It is a piece of historical reasoning which is a fair specimen of his book. The case is plausibly and forcibly put: but that is all. He creates at least as much error as he rectifies. He makes out Catherine's Montaigne to be Jacques de Montagne, 'avocat-général' at Montpellier in 1560. The forensic skill with which the evidence is marshalled covers a quantity of conjectural assumption which, much more than the concluding blunders, must entirely destroy M. Grün's credit as an historical critic.

The third and last period of Montaigne's life extends from ætat. 50-59. This includes a portion of his career which may with more justice be entitled his 'public life.'

He received the announcement of his nomination to the mayoralty of Bordeaux at the baths Della Villa, near Lucca ; but, faithful to his resolution to have done with public life,' he declined the honour, and, after a second visit to Rome, returned slowly into France, with the intention of resuming the peaceful and studious leisure which his long wanderings had made doubly sweet to him. He found, however, that his friends condemned his inactivity, and that the citizens of Bordeaux were resolved not to let him off. Finally he consented-not, however, till the King (Henri III.) had interposed his authority-and entered on

the

the office in January, 1582. His administration was more than usually capable, and he received the rare honour of re-election for a second term of office. During his mayoralty, and after it, he was engaged, on more than one occasion, in transactions of public importance. The history of these, as it has been laboriously pieced together out of the correspondence, acts, registers, and other remains of the time, will be gone through with interest by the circumstantial student. The general reader may perhaps be satisfied with a summary remark upon them. All the negotiations in which Montaigne was thus engaged exhibit his character in a light consistent with what we know of him. We see that he was trusted and recognised on all hands as a gentleman of worth, honour, and experience, to whose management and discretion men were glad to entrust their interests in critical cases. In a time of general suspicion, during protracted civil and religious warfare which had proved a veritable school of treachery and dissimulation,' the open, loyal, straightforward conduct of Montaigne gained him the confidence of both parties. But we do not see him engaged, or ambitious to be engaged, in strictly state affairs, or the more momentous crises of the difficult politics of that shifting scene. His character, wanting in energy and ambition, did not supply the defect of birth, which had not placed him among 'les grands.' He was not qualified, and did not affect, to lead. Any expectation that he should have taken a prominent part in the transactions of his time arises in us from our looking back to his life through the halo of his after-fame. We think that so much worldly wisdom and solid sense must have made itself felt on the theatre of public affairs. It is sufficiently apparent, notwithstanding M. Grün's violent efforts to drag him forward, that Montaigne's indolent and meditative temperament kept him remote from the turmoil of public life. That he was in any degree forced into active duties is to be ascribed to the same easy disposition. He allowed his friends to impose labours which he would never have assumed. Je ne me mets point hors de moi. Il se faut prêter à autrui, et ne se donner qu'à soi même.' These are his characteristic maxims. He is no Hamlet, however. When action is thrust upon him, he is vigilant, steady, and efficient in its performance.

Nothing, in fact, can be less logical than to allow the splendid fame that has gathered round the 'Essais' to react on our conceptions of their author's life. It would be a very vulgar inference that one who has left us a great book must have done great things. No one, indeed, would seriously argue thus, but such a feeling may insensibly influence the expectation we form. The title of the

work

work before us, 'La Vie Publique de Montaigne,' appears as if it were a response to this illusory anticipation. It can only lead to disappointment. As the life of a private country gentleman, loved by his friends, respected by his enemies, trusted by all, and of whom all regretted that he shunned employment, it corresponds perfectly to the careless wisdom and unaffected sagacity of his written page. To attempt to pass him off as a public man only leads a reader to the mortifying exclamation, 'Is this all?' Montaigne, stripped of the essayist, looks to us as he did to the courtiers of his own time. How, Brantôme will witness:

'In our time we have seen lawyers issue from the courts, throw aside the cap and gown, and take to wearing the sword. We have seen those, I say, get the collar of St. Michael without having served at all. Thus did the Sieur de Montaigne, who had far better have stuck to his pen and gone on scribbling essays, than changed it for a sword, which did not sit so well on him. Doubtless his kinsman, the Marquis de Trans, got him knighted by the King, in order to turn the order into ridicule, for the Marquis was always a great mocker.'- Capitaines Illustres,' art. Tavanne.

Such was Montaigne to the courtiers of his own day. The essayist has indeed had his revenge! The growth of his fame, however, has not been continuous. During his own lifetime, and for some time after his death, it was steadily on the increase. He himself saw five editions of his 'Essais' through the press, and thirty-one editions have been counted between 1580 and 1650. There were very soon two complete translations into English, and, through Shakspeare's use of Florio's version, the blood of Montaigne may be said to have flowed into the very veins of our literature. Pascal had studied him till he almost knew him by heart. But as the growth of the Siècle literature gave a new direction to thought and taste, the credit of Montaigne declined. It was not without difficulty that he was admitted among the authorities of the Dictionary of the Academy. Bossuet only names him once, and then he is un Montaigne.' Fenelon mentions him, but it is to reproach him with his Gascon words. And it is a significant fact that from 1659 to 1724 not a single edition of the Essais' was called for. Later times have made abundant atonement for this temporary neglect. Few other books of the sixteenth century could be named which issue from the press at the rate of one edition a year. The original editions sell at bibliomaniac prices. The Cæsar,' with his autograph, for which M. Parison gave 18 sous, was knocked down to the Duc d'Aumale at 1550 francs. Of late years especially, an amount of industry has been expended