s quite contrary to my design, who desire to make a show
of nothing but what is my own, and what is my own by nature; and had I
taken my own advice, I had at all hazards spoken purely alone, I more and
more load myself every day,

[In fact, the first edition of the Essays (Bordeaux, 1580) has very
few quotations. These became more numerous in the edition of 1588;
but the multitude of classical texts which at times encumber
Montaigne's text, only dates from the posthumous edition of 1595, he
had made these collections in the four last years of his life, as an
amusement of his "idleness."--Le Clerc. They grow, however, more
sparing in the Third Book.]

beyond my purpose and first method, upon the account of idleness and the
humour of the age. If it misbecome me, as I believe it does, 'tis no
matter; it may be of use to some others. Such there are who quote Plato
and Homer, who never saw either of them; and I also have taken things out
of places far enough distant from their source. Without pains and
without learning, having a thousand volumes about me in the place where I
write, I can presently borrow, if I please, from a dozen such
scrap-gatherers, people about whom I do not much trouble myself, wherewith
to trick up this treatise of Physiognomy; there needs no more but a
preliminary epistle of a German to stuff me with quotations. And so it
is we go in quest of a tickling story to cheat the foolish world. These
lumber pies of commonplaces, wherewith so many furnish their studies, are
of little use but to common subjects, and serve but to show us, and not
to direct us: a ridiculous fruit of learning, that Socrates so pleasantly
discusses against Euthydemus. I have seen books made of things that were
never either studied or understood; the author committing to several of
his learned friends the examination of this and t'other matter to compile
it, contenting himself, for his share, with having projected the design,
and by his industry to have tied together this faggot of unknown
provisions; the ink and paper, at least, are his. This is to buy or
borrow a book, and not to make one; 'tis to show men not that he can make
a book, but that, whereof they may be in doubt, he cannot make one.
A president, where I was, boasted that he had amassed together two
hundred and odd commonplaces in one of his judgments; in telling which,
he deprived himself of the glory he had got by it: in my o