' Old Pierre Montaigne, a very pious man, esteemed this work
very highly; and a few days before his death, having fortunately found
it among a lot of neglected papers, commanded his son to translate it
from 'that kind of Spanish jargon with Latin endings,' in which it
was written.
Michel, with filial piety, fulfilled his task. He translated the work,
and in the above-mentioned Essay--the largest of the series--he
advocates its philosophy. The essence of this panegyric of the Church
(for logic would in vain be sought for in that Essay) is: that
knowledge and curiosity are simply plagues of mankind, and that the
Roman Catholic religion, therefore, with great wisdom, recommends
ignorance. Man would be most likely to attain happiness if, like
the animal, he were to allow himself to be guided by his simple
instinct. All philosophising is declared to be of no use. Faith only
is said to afford security to the weakest of all beings, to man, who
more than any other creature is exposed to the most manifold dangers.
No elephant, no whale, or crocodile, was required to overcome him who
proudly calls himself the 'lord of creation.' 'Little lice are
sufficient to make Sylla give up his dictatorship. The heart and the
life of a mighty and triumphant emperor form but the breakfast of a
little worm.' [12] (Compare 'Hamlet,' iv. 3).
Montaigne, who, in his thirty-eighth year, 'long weary of the bondage
of Court and of public employment, while yet in the vigour of life,
hath withdrawn himself into the bosom of the Learned Virgins (Doctarum
Virginum),' [13] so as to be able to spend the rest of his days in
his ancestral home, in peaceful, undisturbed devotion to ennobling
studies, and to present the world with a new book, in which he means
to give expression to his innermost thoughts--Montaigne, in his Essay
'On Prayers,' calls his writings 'rhapsodies,' which he submits
to the judgment of the Church, so that it may deal with anything he,
'either ignorantly or unadvisedly, may have set down contrary to the
sacred decrees, and repugnant to the holy prescriptions of the Catholic,
Apostolic, and Roman Church, wherein I die, and in which I was born.
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