. NOTES. 291 



What, then, would Montaigne have faid, in an age when fo 

 many of the Little imagine themfelves to be Great ; when every 

 one has two, three, four titles to fet himfelf off ; when thofe 

 who have none, entrench themfelves under the patronage of 

 thofe who have ? The greater part, in truth, begin with placing 

 themfelves on the knees of a man who is making a noife ; but 

 they never reft till they get upon his (boulders. I do not fpeak 

 of thofe felf-important gentlemen, who, taking poffeffion of an 

 Author, that they may put on the air of ferving him, interpofe 

 themfelves between him and the fources of public favour, in or- 

 der to reduce him to a particular dépendance on them, and who 

 become his declared enemies, if he has the fpirit to rejeél the in- 

 felicity of being protected by them. The happy Montaigne had 

 no need of fortune. But what would he have faid of thofe un- 

 feeling fellows, fo common in all ranks, who, to get rid of their 

 lethargy, court the acquaintance of a Writer of reputation, and 

 wait in filence for his letting off, at every turn, fentences newly 

 coined, or fallies of wit ; who have not fo much as the fenfe to 

 take them in, nor the faculty of retaining them, unlefs they are 

 delivered in an impofing tone, or puffed off in the columns of a 

 Journal ; and who, in a word, if by chance they happen to be 

 flruck, have frequently the malignity to affix to them'an indiffe- 

 rent, or a dangerous meaning, in order to lower a reputation 

 which gives them umbrage. Affuredly, had Montaigne himfelf 

 appeared in our circles, as nothing more than plain Michael, not- 

 withftanding his exquifite judgment, an eloquence fo natural, 

 erudition fo vaft, and which he underflood fo happily to apply, 

 he would have found himfelf every where reduced to filence, 

 like John-James. I have been fomewhat diffufe on this chapter, 

 in honour of the two Authors, ot Emilius, and of the Effays. 

 They have both been accufed of referve, and of making no great 

 figure in converfation ; and, likewife, of being both egotifts in 

 their writings, but with very little juftice on either fcore. It is 

 Man whom they are ever defcribing in their own perfon ; and 

 I always find that when they talk of themfelves, tiiey talk like- 

 wife of me. 



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