MICHEL SEIGNEUR DE**, was descended from an ancient English family named Eyquem, and was born at the castle of Montaigne, Périgord, on the 28th of February 1533. His father, a brave and loyal squire, who had served in Spain and Italy, where he had cultivated his mind and improved his taste, bestowed much attention on his education, and in particular initiated him into the knowledge of languages by a process much less tardy and laborious than that ordinarily pursued in schools. He provided his son with a German master, who, being entirely ignorant of French, but well versed in Latin, spoke to him only in the latter tongue, which he consequently acquired as a vernacular language, and at the age of six was able to converse in it with tolerable freedom and fluency. Greek was also taught him as a sort of diversion. By means equally attractive, he was led to acquire some knowledge of science; and, without forcing his inclination or imposing the necessity of severe application, his habits were formed, and his powers agreeably exercised. All this care and attention he repaid by the most tender affection for the memory of his father; indeed filial piety is said to have formed a conspicuous trait in his character, though it must be confessed that he sometimes displayed it in a manner sufficiently singular. At an early age he was sent to the college of Guienne at Bordeaux, then the most flourishing in France, where he had as masters Nicolas Grouchy, William Guérento, George Buchanan, and Muret, under whom he appears to have made considerable proficiency. Having completed his studies at the age of thirteen, Montaigne resolved to study law; and in 1554 he became a counsellor or advocate at Bordeaux, and continued to practise as such until the death of his elder brother, when he abandoned a profession to which he never had any real liking, and which he appeared afterwards to consider as derogatory. In 1566 he married Françoise de la Chassaigne, to please his friends, he says, rather than himself, for he Montaigne was not much disposed for a married life. He, however, proved a faithful husband, and enjoyed the matrimonial state much better than he had "promised or hoped." But he reconciled himself, as he says in his own familiar, gossiping, satirical way, by reflecting that "it is too late to kick when the fetters are on." He had one daughter as the fruit of this marriage.

At his father's request, Montaigne translated in 1569 the *Theologia Naturalis* of the Spanish divine Raymond Sebonde; and in 1571-2 edited the posthumous works of his lamented friend Etienne de la Boétie. He kept aloof from public affairs during the civil and religious dissensions then desolating France, and thus rendered himself obnoxious both to the Protestants, with whom he really sympathized, and to the Roman Catholics, to whom he was attached by the ties of education and loyalty. His feelings were as humane as his sentiments were liberal; and the horrors of St Bartholomew plunged him into a deep melancholy. For the improvement of his health, and with a view to the study of men and manners, he travelled through various parts of France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, making observations on everything curious or interesting in society, and receiving several marks of distinction in the course of his peregrinations. The private journal which he kept of this tour was discovered two centuries afterwards, and published under the title of *Journal de Voyage de Michel de Montaigne en Italie, par la Suisse et l'Allemagne*, en 1580-81, Paris, 1774. It was about this period that he began to write his celebrated *Essais*, which were published in March 1580. In 1581 he was admitted a citizen of Rome, in which city he then sojourned; and the same year he was elected mayor of Bordeaux, an office in which he seems to have given much satisfaction to his fellow-citizens. In 1582 he was sent on a special mission to court about some affairs of importance; and on the expiration of his mayoralty he was again elected to the same office. In 1588 he appeared to some advantage at the assembly of the states at Blois, and, though not a deputy, took a share in the proceedings, but on what pretence or in what capacity does not clearly appear. During one of his visits to court he received the cordon of the order of Saint Michel, a distinction which he appears to have greatly coveted, though we afterwards find him complaining of the discredit into which it had fallen. Having retired to his family residence, he devoted himself to study; but his tranquillity was disturbed by the civil wars which desolated Guienne; and being driven from his house, he wandered about during six months seeking shelter for his family, and often with difficulty obtaining an asylum amongst those who had shared his hospitality. It appears, from a statement of De Thou, that Montaigne had sought to bring about a reconciliation between the Duke of Guise and the King of Navarre, afterwards Henri IV.; and on his return from Paris, where he had completed a new impression of his *Essais* in 1588, he was with the historian at Blois when the Duke of Guise was there assassinated. In his old age he was very much afflicted with stone and nephritic colic; but he never could be prevailed on to take medical advice. He died on the 13th of September 1589, and was buried in the church of the Feuillants at Bordeaux, where a monument was erected to his memory. Notwithstanding his constitutional tendency to scepticism, and certain ungarded expressions which seem almost to intimate an entire absence of the sentiment of religion, he is said to have died a Christian. He at all events had mass celebrated in his chamber in his last moments, and expired during the elevation of the host.

To form anything like a correct idea of Montaigne, it is absolutely necessary to make a study of his *Essais*. Nothing but a weak and dwarfish picture of the man could be Montaigne, formed from selections or quotations from his familiar pages, however judiciously made. His book, he informs us, is about himself; and himself alone. Whatever else of anecdote, speculation, narrative, or remark, is introduced into it, has only a place there from its relation to the living centre around which it has been collected. In what to him seemed a wide sea of conflicting opinion, shoreless and without a horizon, the only fixed and really tangible object he considered to be himself. To disclose himself; accordingly, in all phases of his nature, whether of strength or weakness, nobility or meanness, beauty or deformity, wisdom or folly, he made the business of his calm, meditative life. He records his virtues and his vices, his merits and his defects, with a familiar candour and easy simplicity which at once disarms criticism and secures sympathy. One feels, as he listens to this strange blending of simple gossip and deep wisdom, told in an easy, rambling, picturesque style, as if he occupied a seat in that small round study of Montaigne's, with its "three noble and free prospects," from "the third storey of a tower" of his high, windy Montaigne Castle, and enjoyed the close and familiar friendship of this robust, indolent, thoughtful old Gascon. As to his personal appearance, he was of low stature, he informs us: "I am, as to the rest, strong and well-knit; my face is not puffed, but full; my complexion, betwixt jovial and melancholic, moderately sanguine and hot." He deplores his incorrigible awkwardness and want of personal dexterity. "My hands are so clumsy that I cannot so much as write so as to read it myself." He consoles himself, however, for these physical defects by the reflection, that "my bodily qualities are very well suited to those of my soul; there is nothing sprightly, only a full and firm vigour. I am patient enough of labour and pains; but it is only when I go voluntarily to the work, and only so long as my own desire prompts me." (Essais, t. ii., c. 17.) He dwells now upon his want of memory and his perfect truthfulness,—upon his occasional absence of mind,—upon his dislike of ceremony and love of politeness,—and upon his disbelief in omens and ghosts. Again, he has a profound sense of the sad instability of all human affairs, becomes gravely thoughtful, and shows symptoms of a real though passing melancholy as he meditates on death. He wore for his device a balance, with the characteristic motto, "Que say je?" was vain of his cordon of honour, and was fond of showing his coat of arms. He was strongly averse to all cruelty and malignity of feeling; and never fails to denounce injustice, inhumanity, and uncharitableness.

His reputation as a writer is founded solely on his Essais, which were at one time extremely popular, and which are still read by a numerous class. As a writer, he imparted to the French language an energy which it did not before possess, and which but few of his successors have equalled. As a philosopher, his object was to describe man as he is, without reserve and without exaggeration; he studied himself, and recorded his observations with surprising acuteness and fidelity. He united in a high degree the powers of observation and reflection, without which the study of man can never be successfully prosecuted; and although there is no doubt much truth in the acute but severe strictures on his character by the Port-Royalists, who freely expose his vanity, his self-love, and the indulgent manner in which he speaks of his vices; yet, as Mr Stewart observes, "this consideration, so far from diminishing the value of his Essais, is one of the most instructive lessons they afford to those who, after the example of the author, may undertake the salutary but humiliating task of self-examination."

In the first Preliminary Dissertation (part i., section ii.), to which the reader is referred, will be found an exposition and criticism of Montaigne's philosophy. Montaigne's Life was first written by the President Bouhier, and prefixed to a supplementary volume of his works in 1740. In 1774 the Academy of Bordeaux awarded a prize to Talbert for an éloge de Montaigne; and the French Academy bestowed a similar honour on Villemain in 1812. This masterly éloge Montalvan is attached to the 8-vol. edition of Montaigne's Essais, Paris, 1825. The best English translation of the Essais is that of Cotton, first published in 1700, but revised and corrected in 1759.

Since the above was written a new Life of Montaigne has been published by Bayle St John, Lond. 1857. (For valuable papers on Montaigne, see Sterling's Essays and Tales, Emerson's Representative Men, and Oxford Essays for 1857.)