Page:EB1911 - Volume 18.djvu/778



MONTAGU (or ), RICHARD (1577–1641), English divine, was born at Dorney, Buckinghamshire, and educated at Eton and Cambridge. In 1613 he was elected fellow of Eton and became rector of Stanford Rivers, Essex. He was appointed to the deanery of Hereford in 1616, but exchanged it next year for a canonry of Windsor, which he held with the rectory of Petworth, Sussex. He was also chaplain to James I. Like Laud, he disliked the extremes of Calvinism and Romanism, and this attitude constantly involved him in difficulties. About 1619 he came into collision with some Roman Catholics in his parish, and Matthew Kellison (1560?–1642) attacked him in a pamphlet entitled The Gagg of the Reformed Gospel (Douai, 1623). Montagu replied with ''A Gagg for the New Gospell? No''. A New Gagg for an Old Goose (London, 1624). The publication of the Immediate Addresse unto God alone (London, 1624) incensed the Puritans, who appealed to the House of Commons, but Montagu was protected by the king. After the appearance of his famous Appello Caesarem (London, 1625), his case frequently came before parliament and conferences of bishops, but his influence at court and with Laud enabled him to hold his ground. He was consecrated bishop of Chichester in 1628, and became bishop of Norwich in 1638. He died on the 13th of April 1641.

MONTAIGNE, MICHEL DE (1533–1592), French essayist, was born, as he himself tells us, between eleven o’clock and noon on the 28th of February 1533. The patronymic of the Montaigne family, who derived their title from the château at which the essayist was born and which had been bought by his grandfather, was Eyquem. It was believed to be of English origin, and the long tenure of Gascony and Guienne by the English certainly provided abundant opportunity for the introduction of English colonists. But the elaborate researches of M. Malvézin (Michel de Montaigne, son origine et sa famille, 1875) proved the existence of a family of Eyquems or Ayquems before the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry II. of England, though no connexion between this family, who were sieurs de Lesparre, and the essayist’s ancestors can be made out. Montaigne is not far from Bordeaux, with which the Eyquem family had for some time been connected. Pierre Eyquem, Montaigne’s father, had been engaged in commerce (a herring-merchant Scaliger calls him, and his grandfather Ramon had certainly followed that trade), had filled many municipal offices in Bordeaux, and had served under Francis I. in Italy as a soldier. He married Antoinette de Louppes (Lopez), descended from a family of Spanish Jews. The essayist was the third son. By the death of his elder brothers, however, he became head of the family. He had also six younger brothers and sisters. His father appears, like many other men of the time, to have made a hobby of education. Montaigne was not only put out to nurse with a peasant woman, but had his sponsors from the same class, and was accustomed to associate with it. He was taught Latin orally by servants (a German tutor, Horstanus, is especially mentioned), who could speak no French, and many curious fancies were tried on him, as, for instance, that of waking him every morning by soft music. But he was by no means allowed to be idle. A plan of teaching him Greek by some kind of mechanical arrangement is not very intelligible, and was quite unsuccessful. These details of his education (which, like most else that is known about him, come from his own mouth) are not only interesting in themselves, but remind the reader how, not far from the same time, Rabelais, the other leading writer of French during the Renaissance, was exercising himself, though not being exercised, in plans of education almost as fantastic. At six years old Montaigne was sent to the collège de Guienne at Bordeaux, then at the height of its reputation. Among its masters were Buchanan, afterwards the teacher of James&emsp;I., and Muretus, one of the first scholars of the age. At thirteen Montaigne left the collège de Guienne and began to study law, it is not known where, but probably at Toulouse. In 1548 he was at Bordeaux during one of the frequent riots caused by the gabelle, or salt-tax. Six years afterwards, having attained his majority, he was made a counsellor in the Bordeaux parlement. In 1558 he was present at the siege of Thionville, in 1559 and 1561 at Paris, and in 1562 at the siege of Rouen. He was also much about the court, and he admits very frankly that in his youth he led a life of pleasure, if not exactly of excess. In 1565 he married Françoise de la Chassaigne, whose father was, like himself, a member of the Bordeaux parlement. Three years later his father died, and he succeeded to the family possessions. Finally, in 1571, as he tells us in an inscription still extant, he retired to Montaigne to take up his abode there, having given up his magistracy the year before. His health, never strong, had been further weakened by the hard living which was usual at the time. He resolved, accordingly, to retire to a life of study and contemplation, though he indulged in no asceticism except careful diet. He neither had nor professed any enthusiastic affection for his wife, but he lived on excellent terms with her, and bestowed some pains on the education of the only child (a daughter, Léonore) who survived infancy. In his study—a tower of refuge, separate from the house, which he has minutely described—he read, wrote, dictated, meditated, inscribed moral sentences which still remain on the walls and rafters, annotated his books, some of which are still in existence, and in other ways gave himself up to a learned ease.

He was not new to literature. In his father’s lifetime, and at his request, he had translated the Theologia naturalis of Raymund de Sabunde, a Spanish schoolman (published 1569). On first coming to live at Montaigne he edited the works of his deceased friend Étienne de la Boétie, who had been the comrade of his youth, who died early, and who, with poems of real promise, had composed a declamatory and school-boyish theme on republicanism, entitled the Contr’ un, which is one of the most over-estimated books in literature. But the years of his studious retirement were spent on a work of infinitely greater importance. Garrulous after a fashion as Montaigne is, he gives us no clear idea of any original or definite impulse leading him to write the famous Essays. It is very probable that if they were at first intended to have any special form at all it was that of a table-book or journal, such as was never more commonly kept than in the 16th century. It is certainly very noticeable that the earlier essays, those of the first two books, differ from the later in one most striking point, in that of length. Speaking generally, the essays of the third book average fully four times the length of those of the other two. This of itself would suggest a difference in the system of composition. These first two books appeared in 1580, when their author was forty-seven years old.

They contain, as at present published, no fewer than ninety-three essays, besides an exceedingly long apology for the already mentioned Raymund Sabunde, in which some have seen the kernel of Montaigne’s philosophy. The book begins with a short avis (address to the reader), opening with the well-known words, “C’est icy un livre de bon foy, lecteur,” and sketching in a few lively sentences the character of meditative egotism which is kept up throughout. His sole object, the author says, is to leave for his friends and relations a mental portrait of himself, defects and all; he cares neither for utility nor for fame. The essays then begin, without any attempt to explain or classify their subjects. Their titles are of the most diverse character. Sometimes they are proverbial sayings or moral adages, such as “Par divers moyens on arrive à pareille fin,” “Qu’il ne faut juger de notre heur qu’après la mort,” “Le profit de l’on est le dommage de l’aultre.” Sometimes they are headed like the chapters of a treatise on ethics: “De la tristesse,” “De l'oisiveté,” “De la peur," “De l’amitié.” Sometimes a fact of some sort which has awaked a train of associations in the mind of the writer serves as a title, such as “On est puni de s’opiniastrer à une place sans raison.” “De la bataille de Dreux,” &c. Occasionally the titles seem to be deliberately fantastic, as “Des puces,” “De l’usage de se vestir.” Sometimes, though not very often, the sections are in no proper sense essays, but merely commonplace book entries of singular facts or quotations, with hardly any comment. These point to the haphazard or indirect origin of them, which has been already suggested. But generally the essay-character—that is to say, the discussion of a special point, it may be with wide digressions and divergences—displays itself. The digressions are indeed constant, and sometimes have the appearance of being absolutely wilful. The nominal title, even when most strictly observed, is