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.”

["Let the wise man bear the name of a madman, the just one of an
unjust, if he seek wisdom more than is sufficient.” 
—­Horace, Ep., i. 6, 15.]

["The wise man is no longer wise, the just man no longer just, if he
seek to carry his love for wisdom or virtue beyond that which is
necessary.”]

This is a subtle consideration of philosophy.  A man may both be too much in love with virtue, and be excessive in a just action.  Holy Writ agrees with this, Be not wiser than you should, but be soberly wise.—­[St. Paul, Epistle to the Romans, xii. 3.]—­I have known a great man,