KEMPTEN ” 116 AUGSBURG ” 128 MUNICH ” 150 INNSBRUCK ” 158 BRIXEN ” 172 TRENT ” 180 INTRODUCTION In the world of literature there are many instances which exhibit the personality of a particular writer identified so completely with certain of his works that he is, so to speak, divorced from all association with any others, however great their merit, which he may have left behind him. The popular verdict, so often swayed by incomprehensible impulse, is given in favour of one or two books, and all the rest fall into oblivion or neglect. How trifling is the vogue of Walton’s “Lives” compared with that of the “Angler.” To the multitude Swift is known almost entirely as the author of Gulliver, and the name of Gray suggests the “Elegy” as inevitably as that of Cowper suggests “John Gilpin.” In like manner we find the fame of Montaigne resting on the “Essays” alone; but this case is in a measure exceptional. Montaigne died in 1592, and until 1774 the “Essays” comprised the whole of his literary legacy. In the year last mentioned, a certain M. Prunis, who was collecting materials for a history of Perigord, discovered in a chest at the Château de Montaigne the manuscript account of the writer’s travels in Switzerland, the Empire, and Italy in the years 1580 and 1581. Notwithstanding the fame of the writer, and the inherent interest of the long-hidden work, the “Journal” failed to win the public favour, and virtually Montaigne still kept the status of a single book author. It has never roused much enthusiasm in France, in spite of a generous and appreciative article by Sainte-Beuve in the _Nouveaux Lundis_. “Montaigne,” he writes, “is the intimate friend of every one of us, and of our intimate friends it is impossible to know too much.” And he then goes on to demonstrate the extraordinary value and interest of the “Journal” when read in connection with the “Essays.” It is casting no slur on the “Journal” to say that it is inferior to the writers masterpiece in literary grace; and, so much being granted, it may be asserted that nowhere in Montaigne’s writings is his personality, with its attractive wisdom and no less attractive weaknesses, more clearly and completely exhibited than in the work under consideration.