his exclamation in the language that had been originally taught him.

Another proof of his proficiency in learning is, that whilst at college he sustained the chief characters in the Latin tragedies of Buchanan, Guerente and Muretus, which were played with great pomp and circumstance. This took place when he was not much more than eleven, before the usual age at which such parts were confided to scholars. He acted with great propriety of voice, expression, and gesture. It was André Govea,* the principal of the college, who instituted and arranged these spectacles; for which Montaigne praises him, thinking it not improper for youths of good family to resort to such an amusement.

It is not easy to reconcile with these facts the assertion that he was slow of apprehension, dull of invention, and extraordinarily deficient in memory; that, in fact, he was the most backward in learning, not only of his brothers, but of all the children of his province. Few authentic instances of proficiency equal to his are recorded, except in the case of some of those monsters whose early developement has insured premature decay. We are persuaded that no one of Montaigne's condiscipuli finally left college at the age of thirteen; and he expressly informs us that he had gone through all the classes, besides obtaining an extensive acquaintance with Latin literature. He does not, certainly, profess to have entirely mastered the belles lettres by twelve years of age; and philosophy, mathematics, Greek, and Hebrew, at thirteen; but at a time when most boys are beginning to enter on their serious studies, he had concluded his. So far from this rapidity being common, the contrary defect of slowness is constantly made a reproach to the education of the sixteenth century. The fifteen thousand students who flocked to the University of Paris, wasted there some of the most valuable years of their lives. And the misfortune was, that their acquisitions

*See Bayle, Dict. v. "Govea."

had no direct bearing on the professions to which they were destined. Nearly every family was ambitious of placing one of its members either in the law or the church, and the competition therefore was great; so that, in addition to the knowledge actually required, it was made incumbent to penetrate into other useless departments of science. The great end of education, therefore, had become perverted. No man thought of making of his mind an instrument to effect a definite purpose, but every one laboured to accumulate vast masses of facts and theories in his head that had no bearing whatever, at least but a very remote one, on the affairs of this life. Doubtless the result of all this mental activity was good. The labours of the human mind can never be entirely sterile, and it is natural that among the number of those who addicted themselves to study, many should really, whether by accident or in consequence of the original good constitution of their minds, make a good use of what they acquired. Among the benefits resulting, that which principally struck Michaelo Euriano, a Venetian ambassador contemporary with Montaigne, was the fact that the bishoprics began no longer to be bestowed on ignorant persons; "and would to God," he naïvely exclaims, "that this matter had been earlier taken into consideration for the benefit of Christendom!"

The great evil, however, of the system pursued was the loss of time it entailed. The picture of it by Rabelais, when due deduction is made on account of exaggeration, will give the reader some idea of the slowness of the process. Five years did Thubal Holofernes employ in teaching young Gargantua his letters, and forty-five years more did Jobelin Bride occupy in directing the remainder of his studies; "after which," says the satirist, "he was as wise as when he began."§ So far from being able to use his knowledge, when

'—an extraordinary

idiom.

called upon to reply to an address, his eloquence was on a par with that of a dead ass! This reminds one of the anecdote of the young Prince of France, who, after having completed his studies, was offered some mark of respect by the corporation of a great town. Rising to reply, he cast his eyes around him and said, "Messieurs!" Having made this observation and allowed due time for applause, he bethought him that it would be worth while saying it again, and accordingly he repeated, "Messieurs!" This, at least, was emphatic; the whole assembly hung upon the word, and listened anxiously for its successor; but the princely lips were stationary, his eye was vacant. An uneasy sensation began to spread; each man looked at his neighbour; people felt ashamed, as they always do when listening to a hesitating orator. At length, however, a third time the air was moulded into sound, and a third time the emphatic "Messieurs !" was uttered. The force of patience or even loyalty could no farther go; a general titter went round, and the unfortunate young man rushed out of the room, hid himself from the public gaze, and, with tears in his eyes, cursed the tutors who had given him the rudiments of all the sciences, but had not taught him how to express himself in his own language.

From what we have said above, it would appear that the rapidity with which Montaigne went through his studies was almost unexampled. His extravagant assertions of incapacity, therefore, seem designed to exalt his natural powers by the depreciation of his acquirements. The truth seems to be, that young Montaigne was not what is called a brilliant boy. He was inclined to physical inactivity, so much so that it was difficult to persuade him to join in the games natural to his age; but it is evident that his idleness arose partly from love of contemplation. When he did condescend to play, however, his thoughts and sentiments so governed his actions, that he never attempted to gain an advantage by any of those arts of childish dishonesty which evince the absence of a rule within.

The slow, deliberate, and some

what stolid manners of Montaigne when a boy, arose in part, likewise, out of a certain pride springing from a consciousness of superiority. His meditations, which he employed about few things, and such only as he could seize with a firm grasp, produced as offspring ideas singularly daring, and opinions above his age. These, in general, he kept to himself, digesting them in private for his own use. His character seems to have been at all times gentle, and rarely was it necessary to inflict any chastisement upon him. Twice only was he beaten, and then very gently. For acts of commission he seems rarely to have deserved punishment. No one feared that he would do ill, but that he would do nothing. He was not even greedy after those things which children most covet, as sugar, sweetmeats, and cakes. It was necessary to compel him to eat them, which was done from an opinion that this refusal of delicate food arose from excessive delicacy of taste.

Montaigne left college in 1546, and from that time until he was grown up little or nothing is known of his life. We must suppose that he continued, though not very assiduously, the studies he had begun, but that the manners, habits, opinions, and ideas of his times, opposed themselves to any inclination he might have felt to devote the principal part of his leisure to the acquisition of booklearning. It would seem that, from the period of which we speak until he was nearly forty years of age, his life resembled that of his neighbours and equals. We know that he early became councillor in the parliament of Bourdeaux, that he led a dissipated life for some time, that he made a mariage de convenance; but it is almost impossible to trace the progress of his intellect. That it did develope itself we know, and likewise that it developed itself in the direction which might have been expected from his early education. But there is little beyond conjecture to enable us to determine whether he lost or gained more from having been plunged for nearly twenty years in the gaieties of French society in the sixteenth century.

FEW, if any, of our commonplace sayings, are less contradicted than that which asserts all human expectations to be liable to disappointment. So I philosophised as I stood on blue Leman's shores, and beheld for the first time Geneva and her far-famed lake. I could scarcely remember a period in my life when I had not imaged to myself more glorious things than even poets, romancers, or philosophers, had sung or said upon these beautiful shores; and when the wish of my childhood was realised, and I beheld with my waking eyes the vision of my day-dreams, the sensations I experienced were those of keen disappointment, mingled with a degree of doubting surprise.

"Is this, then, Geneva?-is this the Lake of Geneva ?" I repeated.

"Oh, you will be more satisfied when you go to Vevay!" was the response.

And to Vevay I went, and at Vevay I was satisfied.

A curious little journey it was that I made to Vevay. It has supplied me with remembrances utterly unknown to those of the million who have travelled the same little distance in their own luxurious carriage and with their English-speaking courier.

The memory of that journey has floated over my brain ever since, until at last it has become a sort of necessity to put its history on paper.

I went in a small diligence from Geneva to Vevay. When I had entered it the other places were almost immediately occupied (with the exception of one) by some countrylooking women, who certainly had not the smallest pretensions, either in dress, manner, or appearance. One of them was, indeed, so remarkably and curiously ugly as actually to cease to be disagreeable. I contemplated the combination of ugliness in her face and features with a degree of interest. Another, who sat beside me, was the prettiest little old creature, for a woman who must

have been fast completing the latter part of our allotted scores of years, I think I ever saw. Her colour was a lively rose; her bright brown eyes shone with an animation which gave them more than the mere fire of youth. All her features, though, in correspondence with her figure, they were small, were almost perfect in form; but, alas! her lips, which had once undoubtedly been as the opening rose, or twin-cherries on one stalk, had considerably fallen in, for all the pretty dame's front teeth had fallen out, and the little pointed chin, with a sort of expression peculiar to itself, was more retroussé in consequence. As for the whole face, you could scarcely help smiling when you looked at it. Yet, while its expression was decidedly merry, there was something more than mirth to be read in it, at least by a discerning eye.

The ugly woman had an immense pocket in front of her checked apron, filled with roasted chestnuts, which she kept offering with assiduous hospitality to all our company. But while I was engaged in observing the beauty that had sustained the wear and tear of more than threescore years, and the ugliness that had, perhaps, become fondly familiar to some loving eyes for half that time, an exclamation of dismay, almost amounting to horror, attracted my attention to the door of our vehicle.

It came from such an animalsuch a contrast to the diligence and its freight. It-I use the neuter pronoun as the most appropriate,— it was one of those beings who have appeared in France since Algiers became one of its country towns-halfArab, and, I was going to add, halfwoman, in costume. But let me describe it.

A short, embonpoint figure, with long curled hair, long beard and moustache; a cap of blue cloth, worked with gold thread, on its head, a loose pelisse of fine purple, with a capote or hood, and wide

sleeves, turned up with black velvet nearly to the elbow; very wide trousers, nearly of the same colour, terminating round the waist, with a splendid sash of heavy silk, brilliant in gold, crimson, and purple dyes,-a vest most daintily delicate.

Is it marvellous that the shriek of dismay had burst from such an exquisite creature on the prospect of being immured alive in a diligence full of such company as I have described? He declared it to be impossible he could enter; and we had to wait a full quarter of an hour in the street while he was debating the important subject. At length, after a violent altercation with the conducteur on the iniquity of transporting such people from place to place, some £ s. d. reasons probably made him compromise his dignity, and gathering his clothes as tightly as he could around him, with a deep sigh or moan, a look of suffering, and the prettiest air of mingled heroism and timidity, he put himself and his pelisse carefully into our vehicle, scarcely noticing the offer of the ugly woman to go outside, and leave more room for both articles in the corner he appropriated. I fear I was indulging in reverie on the follies and vulgar impertinencies of this strange world of ours, when I was awakened into a broad smile by the ugly woman asking the pretty one, with an easy nod of her head towards the fine young monsieur, if he were her garçon, using the word in one of its senses-bachelor or lover.

The hearty laugh of the little old creature it was difficult not to join in, although the horror and aversion depicted in the rueful face of the subject of their merriment might have been an antidote to its influence.

"My garçon !" she cried, turning fully round to the terrified-looking man, and gazing at him as if he were ignorant of their language, or a sort of nonentity with whom reserve was unnecessary,-"my garçon! he is too young for that, I think; if you had said my son, indeed, it might well be."

"Undoubtedly, yes,” returned the other, with apparent simplicity, though it was easy to see the simplicity was assumed, and that they were both good-humouredly reveng

ing themselves for the contempt of our exquisite companion; "yes, so I meant, certainly. Your son, ah! he is too young to be your lover-I see that now!"

The half-Arab darted such a look at me, while pages of indignant notes of interrogation were written therein. In spite of my politeness, I smiled a well-pleased answer. He clearly saw that the indignity and insult to which he was exposed met with no sympathy. Besides, he saw me eat some roasted chestnuts which the ugly woman offered me from the great pocket of her apron. So he prudently considered that it might be as well not to disturb the suppositions of the two old dames, since, as there were two other female tongues ready to spring into action, it might indeed be only stirring up a hornet's nest. So he stayed quite quiet, until, thinking they had gone far enough in their decisions respecting his relationship or future destiny, they began to look out of the windows, and the pretty woman, as if for the first time attracted by a great staring notice on the way-side, called out,

"Look there! what folly!-they have written up The road for Italy,' and it is the road for Vevay!"

The utter simplicity of this speech, in our Algerian's opinion, quite conciliated his wounded vanity, for it was ridiculous to be mortified by such ignorant creatures; and his harmless countenance resumed its self-complacent expression, as he threw me a glance of condescending pity, and, repeating "The road for Vevay!" added, with infinite condescension, turning to the speaker,—

"You have never been farther than from Geneva to Vevay in your life?" while his tone almost syllabled the inference, "I have been to Algiers."

"Yes, I have been farther," she replied, turning her bright, dark, smiling eyes, with a rather knowing sort of look, upon his face.

"Indeed!-not so far as Lyons, however ?"

"And what could bring you there?" demanded the travelled man, measuring her with his eye from head to foot; for a Frenchman who has travelled a little thinks a great deal of it, and a travelled woman is a sort of wonder.

"It was on account of an Inclination I had," the old dame answered.

I did not understand the word "Inclination" so used, and the laugh of our fellow-traveller was therefore unintelligible, until he told me that she had gone from Vevay to Marseilles on account of a lover.

"Was your Inclination, then, at Marseilles ?"

"No, at Vevay."

"Then you forsook him?-was that the other day?" with something of a sneer.

"It was about fifty years ago; I was sixteen then."

"But how then?-your Inclination was at Vevay, yet, on his account, you went to Marseilles at sixteen?" still interrogated the other, whose curiosity was evidently overcoming his exclusiveness.

"Yes; he was too good-too high for me!" she replied, and her eye was less bright, and even her cheek less pink, when she spoke the words, though half a century had passed away.

"You know M. M- of Geneva, perhaps?" she added.

66

"By name, yes," was the answer; a most respectable family." "Well, it was his brother." An exclamation of wonder was uttered at the intelligence.

"And he forsook you?" "Pah! listen, and you will not say so."

"Then you married your Inclina

tion ?"

"Patience!-I say No! Did you never hear that M. M

had one brother-an elder brother, who went away on his travels when he was quite young, and was never heard of more ?"

66 Certainly, that is a well-known story."

"Well, he was my Inclination. He lived generally at Vevay with my father; he studied there, and lodged with us. My father was under great obligations to him. Claude was a few years older than

"At last I had passed my sixteenth year; it was high time to be married then. He wished to marry me; he knew his parents would not consent, but he declared his sentiments to my father, and for his sole answer he received a dismissal from our house, and a command to return to his father,"

Our Algerian nodded his well-covered head approvingly.

"That was honourable and just to his benefactor. Did your Inclination acquiesce? He should have taken you off at once."

"He submitted entirely, but it is true he whispered to me sometimes an assurance that my father would yet change his mind. He was allowed to stay some time longer with us; but, to prevent all danger, my father resolved to marry me to a rich old widower who sought my hand. He had a son older than my Inclination. Bah! it was a contrast a little too striking! I knew my Inclination would never change his mind, and I could not think of ever marrying any one but him."

"Assuredly, one should only marry the person one loves."

"Yes, and then to marry one as old as my father! Well, I knew if I resisted, M. M— would be desired to recall his son, and I knew he would regret leaving Vevay, and I knew I ought not to wish to be his wife; so when I saw my father was resolved on marrying me to the old man, I said to myself, It is you, Minette, that must depart. You must leave all,-father, mother, lover, Vevay! yes, better leave them all than be degraded and miserable!'

"I had a comrade, a young girl who had been at Marseilles. I made her my confidante; she gave me a letter of recommendation to a relation of hers who had a magasin in that town. Finally, I set out on foot and in secret; I got on I know not how, and reached Marseilles."

"And your Inclination ?"

"He knew no more of me than any one else. When every inquiry had been made for me in vain, he went away, some say to sea, and was never heard of more!"