he may take them to be butchered in his wars, to
be the ministers of his avarice, the executors of his vengeance;
you disfigure your forms by labor [your own selves you inure to
toil] that he may cocker himself in delight, and wallow in nasty
and disgusting pleasure.

Montaigne seems really to have loved this friend of his, whom he
reckoned the greatest man in France. His account of La Boetie's death is
boldly, and not presumptuously, paralleled by Mr. St. John with the
"Phaedon" of Plato. Noble writing, it certainly is, though its
stateliness is a shade too self-conscious, perhaps.

We have thus far presented Montaigne in words of his own such as may
fairly be supposed likely to prepossess the reader in his favor. We
could multiply our extracts indefinitely in a like unexceptionable vein
of writing. But to do so, and to stop with these, would misrepresent
Montaigne. Montaigne is very far from being an innocent writer. His
moral tone generally is low, and often it is execrable. He is coarse,
but coarseness is not the worst of him. Indeed, he is cleanliness itself
compared with Rabelais. But Rabelais is morality itself compared with
Montaigne. Montaigne is corrupt and corrupting. This feature of his
writings, we are necessarily forbidden to illustrate. In an essay
written in his old age,--which we will not even name, its general tenor
is so evil,--Montaigne holds the following language:--

I gently turn aside, and avert my eyes from the stormy and cloudy
sky I have before me, which, thanks be to God, I regard without
fear, but not without meditation and study, and amuse myself in the
remembrance of my better years:--

"Animus quod perdidit, optat, Atque in praeterita se totus imagine
versat."

PETRONIUS, c. 128.

["The mind desires what it has lost, and in fancy flings itself
wholly into the past."]

Let childhood look forward, and age backward: is not this the
signification of Janus' double face? Let years haul me along if
they will, but it shall be backward; as long as my eyes can discern
the pleasant season expired, I shall now and then turn them that
way; though it escape from my blood and veins, I shall not,
however, root the image of it out of my memory:--

"Hoc est Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui."

MARTIAL, x. 23, 7.

["'Tis to live twice to be able to enjoy former life again."]

Harm