MONTAIGNE appears to have been sensible of this fact in the literary character.  Of authors, he says, he likes to read their little anecdotes and private passions:—­“Car j’ai une singuliere curiosite de connaitre l’ame et les naifs jugemens de mes auteurs.  Il faut bien juger leur suffisance, mais non pas leurs moeurs, ni eux, par cette montre de leurs ecrits qu’ils etalent au theatre du monde.”  Which may be thus translated:  “For I have a singular curiosity to know the soul and simple opinions of my authors.  We must judge of their ability, but not of their manners, nor of themselves, by that show of their writings which they display on the theatre of the world.”  This is very just; are we yet sure, however, that the simplicity of this old favourite of Europe might not have been as much a theatrical gesture as the sentimentality of Sterne?  The great authors of the Port-Royal Logic have raised severe objections to prove that MONTAIGNE was not quite so open in respect to those simple details which he imagined might diminish his personal importance with his readers.  He pretends that he reveals all his infirmities and weaknesses, while he is perpetually passing himself off for something more than he is.  He carefully informs us that he has “a page,” the usual attendant of an independent gentleman, and lives in an old family chateau; when the fact was, that his whole revenue did not exceed six thousand livres, a state beneath mediocrity.  He is also equally careful not to drop any mention of his having a clerk with a bag; for he was a counsellor of Bordeaux, but affected the gentleman and the soldier.  He trumpets himself forth for having been mayor of Bordeaux, as this offered an opportunity of telling us that he succeeded Marshal Biron, and resigned it to Marshal Matignon.  Could he have discovered that any marshal had been a lawyer he would not have sunk that part of his life.  Montaigne himself has said, “that in forming a judgment of a man’s life, particular regard should be paid to his behaviour at the end of it;” and he more than once tells us that the chief study of his life is to die calm and silent; and that he will plunge himself headlong and stupidly into death, as into an obscure abyss, which swallows one up in an instant; that to die was the affair of a moment’s suffering, and required no precepts.  He talked of reposing on the “pillow of doubt.”  But how did this great philosopher die?  He called for the more powerful opiates of the infallible church!  The mass was performed in his chamber, and, in rising to embrace it, his hands dropped and failed him; thus, as Professor Dugald Stewart observes on this philosopher—­“He expired in performing what his old preceptor, Buchanan, would not have scrupled to describe as an act of idolatry.”

We must not then consider that he who paints vice with energy is therefore vicious, lest we injure an honourable man; nor must we imagine that he who celebrates virtue is therefore virtuous, for we may then repose on a heart which knowing the right pursues the wrong.