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Updated: May 10, 2025
Montaigne's 'Essais' were a work which made a strong mark, and created a deep sensation, in his own country. There, it had already gone through twelve editions before it was introduced in England eleven years after the death of its author by means of a translation. Here it found its first admirers among the highest aristocracy and the patrons of literature and art.
In 1860 the sky was not so grey or so low; and the Poèmes Antiques of Leconte de Lisle, the Études d'histoire religieuse of Renan, and the Essais de Critique of Taine, are possibly not unworthy to be placed in parallel or comparison with the first writings of Flaubert.
In his “Nouveaux Essais sur L’Entendement Humain,” a work in which he combats many of the doctrines of Locke, the insignificance of his idea of the freedom of the will is most clearly and triumphantly exposed.
In closing his remarks on Montaigne he touches with undissembled irony the question whether he was a Christian, and, after contrasting the tone and sentiments of the Essais with those of the Gospels, bids us "remember that we are not in the nineteenth century, but in the sixteenth, that Montaigne died in the act of adoration, and cease to ask whether the man was a Christian;" adding, "Christian?
Montaigne, Essais, Bk. iii, Ch. V. It is a significant fact that, even in the matter of information, women, notwithstanding much ignorance and inexperience, are often better equipped for marriage than men.
Now, in closely examining the changes and additions made in the second 'Hamlet, we find that most of the freshly added philosophical thoughts, and many characteristic peculiarities, have clear reference to the philosophy of a certain book and the character of its author namely, to Michel Montaigne and his 'Essais. This work first appeared in an English translation in 1603, after it had already been entered at Stationers' Hall for publication in 1599.
If it be really meant to attempt to mend the loose morals of the nation, why are nudities, which may be considered as the leaven of corruption, exposed thus in this and other national gardens in Paris? March 5, in continuation. St. Foix, in his "Essais historiques sur Paris" speaking of the Bastille, says, "it is a castle, which, without being strong, is one of the most formidable in Europe."
Leibnitz wrote his great “Essais de Théodicée,” for the purpose of refuting these conclusions of Bayle, as well as those of all other sceptics, and of reconciling his system with the divine attributes. In the preface to his work he says, “We show that evil has another source than the will of God; and that we have reason to say of moral evil, that God only permits it, and that he does not will it.
"It is an opinion accepted by all that it is not right to bring up children in their parents' laps, for natural love softens and relaxes even the wisest." Montaigne, Essais, Bk. I., ch. 25. In old France indeed the conditions seem similar to those in England.
The fact is, we find in the play certain evident allusions which could not possibly have been added before the years 1603-4; for instance, references to the translators of Montaigne John Florio, and the friends who aided him; references which must have been made after the Essais were published.
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