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1. ’80: But I have a memory which is unable to store for three days at a stretch any provisions which I have given into its keeping. So…
2. ’88: known what I think, Excutienda damus praecordia, and what point… Citing Persius, Satires, V, 22: later cited in III, 9, ‘On vanity’.
3. ’80: knowledge of what I am treating. Do not linger over the things I talk about but over the fashioning I give to them when talking about them. What I steal from others I do not wish to make mine: I claim no part in them except for my reasoning and judgement: the rest is not my role. I ask for nothing except that you should see whether I have been capable of selecting what can be rightly linked to my topic. The fact that I sometimes deliberately hide the name of the author in the things which I cite is intended to rein in the frivolousness of those who are concerned to make judgements upon whatever is offered them but who, having no flair for savouring the things in themselves, stop at the name of the workman or his reputation. I wish them to scald themselves by condemning the Cicero and Aristotle in me. What I am obliged…
4. Propertius, IV, i, 70.
5. ’80: my judgement is not satisfied with a mediocre understanding…
6. ’80: category, and from the centuries rather earlier than our own, the Ethiopian History, are worth… (For this work, cf. II, 8, note 13). Johannes Secundus’ Kisses were much appreciated and imitated.
7. Amadis de Gaule, a Spanish novel translated into French in twenty-one volumes, had the success of a high-class soap-opera.
8. The Axiochus was already considered supposititious in the Renaissance.
9. ’80: many better judgements, nor does it rashly give itself the right to arraign them. It blames…
10. Catullus, XLIII, 8.
11. Cicero, the Father of Eloquence; Horace (the ‘best’ judge) prefers Terence to Plautus, Epistles, II, i, 55 ff.
12. Horace, ibid., II, ii, 120.
13. Martial, Epigrams, VIII, dedication to the Emperor Domitian.
14. ’80: nobility, to compensate for that grace which they are unable to imitate, try to…
15. Virgil, Georgics, V, 194.
16. Horace, Ars poetica, 343: the author who ‘wins every vote’, ‘miscuit utile dulci’ (mixes moral usefulness with delight).
17. That is, since Bishop Amyot translated him into French.
18. Seneca was born 4 BC, Plutarch half a century later; Seneca was Nero’s tutor; Plutarch (it was thought) Trajan’s. (Here Montaigne writes a brief parallel life, in the style of Plutarch.)
19. ’80: authors to come quickly to the point. I know…
20. In pagan Rome, Hoc age was the order to commence the sacrificial slaughter; Sursum corda figures in the Christian liturgy of the Eucharist.
21. ’80: Letters, and especially those to Atticus…
22. ’80: equal it. Yet he was not able to exploit his superiority as clearly as Virgil did in his poetry: for soon after him many thought they could equal him or surpass him, though under fake colours: but no poet since Virgil had dared to compare himself to him; and I would like to add another story on this topic. The younger Cicero…
23. Marcus Annaeus Seneca, Suasiorae, VIII.
24. Tacitus, Oratores, XVIII.
25. Indeed a rough bit of Latin! (Cicero, De Senectute, X, 32.)
26. ’80: The historians are the true game that my study would bag; they are pleasant and delightful, and at the same time, reflections on the natures and circumstances of various men and on the customs of different nations are the real subject of ethics. Now…
27. ’80: for me. I most carefully seek out not only the various opinions and arguments on my endeavour of ancient philosophers of all the schools, but also their morals, fates and lives. I am deeply sorry that we do not have Diogenes Laertiuses by the dozen, or that he himself did not spread himself more widely. In this genre… Diogenes Laertius’ compendium of the lives and doctrines of philosophers is indeed incomplete and unoriginal.
28. ’80: Cicero himself and all the yap there ever was. There… Montaigne echoes Cicero’s frequently cited praise of Caesar in Brutus or the Orator.
29. ’80: enemies, and so much truth, that…
30. ’80: dimensions. Those historians are also very commendable who have knowledge of the events they write about either because they played a part in doing them or because they were privy to those who were in charge. For as often as not…
31. ’80: were always found… ’80: doubt. Though they did not write about what they had seen, they at least had experienced the managing of similar affairs which rendered their judgement more sound. For what can we…
32. Suetonius, Life of Caesar, LVI.
33. Jean Bodin, Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem, Paris, 1566.
34. Guicciardini wrote his History of Italy in Italian: Montaigne’s notes on it were in French.
35. Monsieur (‘My Lord’) Du Bellay is Martin Du Bellay, under whose name the Memoirs were published. They include matter from other Du Bellays: Guillaume (the Seigneur de Langey), Bishop Jean and René.
36. Guillaume and Martin Du Bellay.
37. Philip Chabot (Brion) was disgraced in 1540; Montmorency, who was in part responsible, was disgraced in his turn. The King’s acknowledged mistress, the Duchesse d’Estampes, was influential in their downfall.
38. Langey (Guillaume Du Bellay) sought to reconcile German Lutherans by reforming Roman Catholicism; he pacified the Piedmont and was Rabelais’ heroic statesman-scholar.