M. Payen, collecting together and criticising in his last pamphlet the various notices and discoveries, not all of equal importance, allowed himself to be drawn into some little exaggeration of praise; but we cannot blame him.  Admiration, when applied to such noble, perfectly innocent, and disinterested subjects, is truly a spark of the sacred fire:  it produces research that a less ardent zeal would quickly leave aside, and sometimes leads to valuable results.  However, it would be well for those who, following M. Payen’s example, intelligently understand and greatly admire Montaigne, to remember, even in their ardour, the advice of the wise man and the master.  “There is more to do,” said he, speaking of the commentators of his time, “in interpreting the interpretations than in interpreting the things themselves; and more bdoks about books than on any other subject.  We do nothing, but everything swarms with commentators; of authors there is a great rarity.”  Authors are of great price and very scared at all times—­that is to say, authors who really increase the sum of human knowledge.  I should like all who write on Montaigne, and give us the details of their researches and discoveries, to imagine one thing,—­Montaigne himself reading and criticising them.  “What would he think of me and the manner in which I am going to speak of him to the public?” If such a question was put, how greatly it would suppress useless phrases and shorten idle discussions!  M. Payen’s last pamphlet was dedicated to a man who deserves equally well of Montaigne—­M.  Gustave Brunet, of Bordeaux.  He, speaking of M. Payen, in a work in which he pointed out interesting and various corrections of Montaigne’s text, said:  “May he soon decide to publish the fruits of his researches:  he will have left nothing for future Montaignologues” Montaignologues!  Great Heaven! what would Montaigne say of such a word coined in his honour?  You who occupy yourselves so meritoriously with him, but who have, I think, no claim to appropriate him to yourselves, in the name of him whom you love, and whom we all love by a greater or lesser title, never, I beg of you, use such words; they smack of the brotherhood and the sect, of pedantry and of the chatter of the schools—­things utterly repugnant to Montaigne.

Montaigne had a simple, natural, affable mind, and a very happy disposition.  Sprung from an excellent father, who, though of no great education, entered with real enthusiasm into the movement of the Renaissance and all the liberal novelties of his time, the son corrected the excessive enthusiasm, vivacity, and tenderness he inherited by a great refinement and justness of reflection; but he did not abjure the original groundwork.  It is scarcely more than thirty years ago that whenever the sixteenth century was mentioned it was spoken of as a barbarous epoch, Montaigne only excepted:  therein lay error and ignorance.  The sixteenth century was a great century, fertile, powerful, learned,