Harvard Classics, vol 32

Harvard Classics, vol 32

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Title: Literary and Philosophical Essays
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LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS
HARVARD CLASSICS V32

CONTENTS
THAT WE SHOULD NOT JUDGE OF OUR HAPPINESS UNTIL
AFTER OUR DEATH THAT TO PHILOSOPHISE IS TO LEARNE
How TO DIE OF THE INSTITUTION AND EDUCATION OF
CHILDREN OF FRIENDSHIP OF BOOKES BY MONTAIGNE
MONTAIGNE
WHAT IS A CLASSIC? BY CHASLES-AUGUSTIN
SAINTE-BEUVE
THE POETRY OF THE CELTIC RACES BY ERNEST RENAN
THE EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE BY GOTTHOLD
EPHRAIM LESSING
LETTERS UPON THE AESTHETIC EDUCATION OF MAN BY J. C.
FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE METAPHYSIC OF
MORALS
TRANSITION FROM POPULAR MORAL PHILOSOPHY TO THE
METAPHYSIC OF MORALS
IMMANUEL KANT
BYRON AND GOETHE BY GIUSEPPE MAZZINI

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Michel Eyquem De Montaigne, the founder of the modern Essay, was

born February 28, 1533, at the chateau of Montaigne in Pirigord. He
came of a family of wealthy merchants of Bordeaux, and was educated
at the College de Guyenne, where he had among his teachers the great
Scottish Latinist, George Buchanan. Later he studied law, and held
various public offices; but at the age of thirty-eight he retired to his
estates, where he lived apart from the civil wars of the time, and
devoted himself to study and thought. While he was traveling in
Germany and Italy, in 1580-81, he was elected mayor of Bordeaux, and
this office he filled for four years. He married in 1565, and had six
daughters, only one of whom grew up. The first two books of his
"Essays" appeared in 1580; the third in 1588; and four years later he
died.
These are the main external facts of Montaigne's life: of the man
himself the portrait is to be found in his book. "It is myself I portray,"
he declares; and there is nowhere in literature a volume of
self-revelation surpassing his in charm and candor. He is frankly
egotistical, yet modest and unpretentious; profoundly wise, yet
constantly protesting his ignorance; learned, yet careless, forgetful, and
inconsistent. His themes are as wide and varied as his observation of
human life, and he has written the finest eulogy of friendship the world
has known. Bacon, who knew his book and borrowed from it, wrote on
the same subject; and the contrast of the essays is the true reflection of
the contrast between the personalities of their authors.
Shortly after Montaigne's death the "Essays" were translated into
English by John Florio, with less than exact accuracy, but in a style so
full of the flavor of the age that we still read Montaigne in the version
which Shakespeare knew. The group of examples here printed exhibits
the author in a variety of moods, easy, serious, and, in the essay on
"Friendship," as nearly impassioned as his philosophy ever allowed
him to become.
Reader, be here a well-meaning Booke. It doth at the firth entrance
forewarne thee, that in contriving the same I have proposed unto my
selfe no other than a familiar and private end: I have no respect or
consideration at all, either to thy service, or to my glory: my forces are
not capable of any such desseigne. I have vowed the same to the
particular commodity of my kinsfolks and friends: to the end, that
losing me (which they are likely to doe ere long), they may therein find

some lineaments of my conditions and humours, and by that meanes
reserve more whole, and more lively foster the knowledge and
acquaintance they have had of me. Had my intention beene to