Montaigne has been also censured for several licentious and some cynical passages of his ‘Essais.’ This licentiousness, however, is rather in the expressions than in the meaning of the author. He spoke plainly of things which are not alluded to in a more refined state of society, but he did so evidently without mischievous intentions, and as a thing of common occurrence in his days. His early familiarity with the Latin classics probably contributed to this habit. Notwithstanding these faults, Montaigne’s Essays are justly admired for the sound sense, honesty, and beauty which abound in them. ‘The best parts of them (says a French critic) are those in which he speaks of the passions and inclinations of men; as for his learning, it is vague, not methodical, and uncertain; and his philosophical maxims are often dangerous.’ (Mélanges d’Histoire et de Litterature,’ Rouen, 1699, tom. i. p. 133.) Montaigne combats most earnestly all the malignant feelings inherent in man, inhumanity, injustice, oppression, uncharitableness; cruelty he detests, his whole nature was averse from it. His chapters on pedantry and on the education of children are remarkably good. He throws, at times, considerable light on the state of society and manners in France in his time, which may be considered as the last period of feudal power in that country. In his chapter on the inequality among men, he speaks of the independence of the French nobility, especially in the provinces remote from the Court, as Britanny; where the feudal lords living on their estates, surrounded by their vassals, their officers and valets, their household conducted with an almost royal ceremonial, heard of the king but once a-year as if he were some distant king or Sultan of Persia, and only remembered him on the score of some distant relationship, which they hold carefully registered among their ancestral documents. Mademoiselle de Gournay edited Montaigne’s ‘Essais’ in 1635, and dedicated the edition to the Cardinal de Richelieu. She wrote a long preface to it, which is a zealous apology for Montaigne and his works against the charges of the earlier critics. An edition of the ‘Essais’ was published by Pierre Coste, 3 vols. 4to. London, 1724, enriched with valuable notes and several letters of Montaigne at the end of the third volume. The edition of Paris, 3 vols. 4to. 1725, is, in great measure, a reprint of that of Coste, except that the publishers have added extracts of the various judgments of the most distinguished critical writers concerning the ‘Essais,’ and also two more letters of Montaigne’s at the end. These additions render this Paris edition the most complete. The ex-senator Vernier published in 1810, ‘Notices et Observations pour faciliter la Lecture des Essais de Montaigne,’ Paris, 2 vols. 8vo. It is a useful commentary. [Illustration] POPE.