d Sir Thomas
Browne, his "Urn Burial" or his "Christian Morals." It seems almost more
miraculous that this attitude should be taken toward Montaigne, and that
some folk should prefer the "Essays of Montaigne" in the pleasant,
curtailed edition of John Florio's translation, edited by Justin Huntly
McCarthy! These small books are convenient, no doubt. If you cannot have
the original French, or the leisure to browse over the big volume of
Florio's old book as it was written, Mr. McCarthy's edition is an
agreeable but not satisfactory substitute. It somehow or other reminds
one of that appalling series of cutdown "Classics," so largely
recommended to a public that is seduced to run and read. A condensed
edition of Froissart may do very well for boys; but who can visualize
the kind of mind content with a reduced version of "Vanity Fair"?

Montaigne is a city of refuge from the whirling words of the uplifters.
At times I have been compelled from a sense of duty, a mistaken one, to
read whole pages of Mr. Wells, whose "Marriage" and "The New
Machiavelli" and "Tono-Bungay," will be remembered when "Mr.
Britling"--by the way, what did Mr. Britling see through?--shall be
forgotten. As an antidote, I invariably turn to Montaigne. It amazed me
to hear Montaigne called a skeptic. He is even more reverent toward the
eternal verities than Sir Thomas Browne, and he has fewer superstitions.
It was his humanity and his love for religion that turned him from
Aristotle to Plato, and yet he is no fanatic for Plato. He is a real
amateur of good books. Listen to this:

As for Cicero, I am of the common judgment, that besides learning
there was an exquisite eloquence in him: He was a good citizen, of
an honest, gentle nature, as are commonly fat and burly men: for so
was he. But to speake truly of him, full of ambitious vanity and
remisse niceness. And I know not well how to excuse him, in that he
deemed his Poesie worthy to be published. It is no great
imperfection to make bad verses, but it is an imperfection in him
that he never perceived how unworthy they were of the glorie of his
name. Concerning his eloquence it is beyond all comparison, and I
verily believe that none shall ever equall it.

Montaigne sorrowed it a thousand times that ever the book written by
Brutus on Virtue was lost. He consoles himself, however, by remembering
that Brutus is so well represented in Plutarch. He would r