The Essays, vol 1 | Page 5

been
given; but, as regards the correspondence, it can scarcely be doubted
that it is in a purely fragmentary state. To do more than furnish a sketch
of the leading incidents in Montaigne's life seemed, in the presence of
Bayle St. John's charming and able biography, an attempt as difficult as
it was useless.
The besetting sin of both Montaigne's translators seems to have been a
propensity for reducing his language and phraseology to the language
and phraseology of the age and country to which they belonged, and,
moreover, inserting paragraphs and words, not here and there only, but
constantly and habitually, from an evident desire and view to elucidate
or strengthen their author's meaning. The result has generally been
unfortunate; and I have, in the case of all these interpolations on
Cotton's part, felt bound, where I did not cancel them, to throw them
down into the notes, not thinking it right that Montaigne should be
allowed any longer to stand sponsor for what he never wrote; and
reluctant, on the other hand, to suppress the intruding matter entirely,
where it appeared to possess a value of its own.
Nor is redundancy or paraphrase the only form of transgression in
Cotton, for there are places in his author which he thought proper to
omit, and it is hardly necessary to say that the restoration of all such
matter to the text was considered essential to its integrity and
completeness.
My warmest thanks are due to my father, Mr Registrar Hazlitt, the
author of the well-known and excellent edition of Montaigne published
in 1842, for the important assistance which he has rendered to me in
verifying and retranslating the quotations, which were in a most corrupt
state, and of which Cotton's English versions were singularly loose and
inexact, and for the zeal with which he has co-operated with me in
collating the English text, line for line and word for word, with the best
French edition.
By the favour of Mr F. W. Cosens, I have had by me, while at work on
this subject, the copy of Cotgrave's Dictionary, folio, 1650, which
belonged to Cotton. It has his autograph and copious MSS. notes, nor is
it too much to presume that it is the very book employed by him in his
translation. W. C. H. KENSINGTON, November 1877.

BOOK THE FIRST.
CHAP.
I. That men by various ways arrive at the same end.
II. Of Sorrow.
III. That our affections carry themselves beyond us.
IV. That the soul discharges her passions upon false objects, where the
true are wanting.
V. Whether the governor of a place besieged ought himself to go out to
parley.
VI. That the hour of parley is dangerous.
VII. That the intention is judge of our actions
VIII. Of idleness.
IX. Of liars.
X. Of quick or slow speech.
XI. Of prognostications.
XII. Of constancy.
XIII. The ceremony of the interview of princes.
XIV. That men are justly punished for being obstinate in the defence of
a fort that is not in reason to be defended.
XV. Of the punishment of cowardice.
XVI. A proceeding of some ambassadors.
XVII. Of fear.
XVIII. That men are not to judge of our happiness till after death.
XIX. That to study philosophy is to learn to die.
XX. Of the force of imagination.
XXI. That the profit of one man is the damage of another.
XXII. Of custom, and that we should not easily change a law received.
XXIII. Various events from the same counsel.
XXIV. Of pedantry.
XXV. Of the education of children.
XXVI. That it is folly to measure truth and error by our own capacity.
XXVII. Of friendship.
XXVIII. Nine-and-twenty sonnets of Estienne de la Boetie.
XXIX. Of moderation.
XXX. Of cannibals.
XXXI. That a man is soberly to judge of the divine ordinances.

XXXII. That we are to avoid pleasures, even at the expense of life.
XXXIII. That fortune is oftentimes observed to act by the rule of
reason.
XXXIV. Of one defect in our government.
XXXV. Of the custom of wearing clothes.
XXXVI. Of Cato the Younger.
XXXVII. That we laugh and cry for the same thing.
XXXVIII. Of solitude.
XXXIX. A consideration upon Cicero.
XL. That the relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon
the opinion we have of them.
XLI. Not to communicate a man's honour.
XLII. Of the inequality amongst us.
XLIII. Of sumptuary laws.
XLIV. Of sleep.
XLV. Of the battle of Dreux.
XLVI. Of names.
XLVII. Of the uncertainty of our judgment.
XLVIII. Of war-horses, or destriers.
XLIX. Of ancient customs.
L. Of Democritus and Heraclitus.
LI. Of the vanity of words.
LII. Of the parsimony of the Ancients.
LIII. Of a saying of Caesar.
LIV. Of vain subtleties.
LV. Of smells.
LVI. Of prayers.
LVII.