of our government, without troubling themselves to think whether they are likely to improve it:  and because they have mixed up his work with some of their own performance, I have refrained from inserting it here.  But that the memory of the author may not be injured, nor suffer with such as could not come near-hand to be acquainted with his principles, I here give them to understand, that it was written by him in his boyhood, and that by way of exercise only, as a common theme that has been hackneyed by a thousand writers.  I make no question but that he himself believed what he wrote, being so conscientious that he would not so much as lie in jest:  and I moreover know, that could it have been in his own choice, he had rather have been born at Venice, than at Sarlac; and with reason.  But he had another maxim sovereignty imprinted in his soul, very religiously to obey and submit to the laws under which he was born.  There never was a better citizen, more affectionate to his country; nor a greater enemy to all the commotions and innovations of his time:  so that he would much rather have employed his talent to the extinguishing of those civil flames, than have added any fuel to them; he had a mind fashioned to the model of better ages.  Now, in exchange of this serious piece, I will present you with another of a more gay and frolic air, from the same hand, and written at the same age.”

CHAPTER XXVIII.

NINE AND TWENTY SONNETS OF ESTIENNE DE LA BOITIE

To Madame de Grammont, COMTESSE de GUISSEN.

[They scarce contain anything but amorous complaints, expressed in a very rough style, discovering the follies and outrages of a restless passion, overgorged, as it were, with jealousies, fears and suspicions.—­Coste.]

[These....contained in the edition of 1588 nine-and-twenty sonnets of La Boetie, accompanied by a dedicatory epistle to Madame de Grammont.  The former, which are referred to at the end of Chap.  XXVIL, do not really belong to the book, and are of very slight interest at this time; the epistle is transferred to the Correspondence.  The sonnets, with the letter, were presumably sent some time after Letters V. et seq.  Montaigne seems to have had several copies written out to forward to friends or acquaintances.]

CHAPTER XXIX.

OF MODERATION

As if we had an infectious touch, we, by our manner of handling, corrupt things that in themselves are laudable and good:  we may grasp virtue so that it becomes vicious, if we embrace it too stringently and with too violent a desire.  Those who say, there is never any excess in virtue, forasmuch as it is not virtue when it once becomes excess, only play upon words: 

              “Insani sapiens nomen ferat, aequus iniqui,
               Ultra quam satis est, virtutem si petat ipsam.”