ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE-3

<p>The present publication is intended to supply a recognised deficiency in our literature&mdash;a library edition of the Essays of Montaigne. This great French writer deserves to be regarded as a classic not only in the land of his birth but in all countries and in all literatures. His Essays which are at once the most celebrated and the most permanent of his productions form a magazine out of which such minds as those of Bacon and Shakespeare did not disdain to help themselves; and indeed as Hallam observes the Frenchman&rsquo;s literary importance largely results from the share which his mind had in influencing other minds coeval and subsequent. But at the same time estimating the value and rank of the essayist we are not to leave out of the account the drawbacks and the circumstances of the period: the imperfect state of education the comparative scarcity of books and the limited opportunities of intellectual intercourse. Montaigne freely borrowed of others and he has found men willing to borrow of him as freely.</p><p></p>