Page:Essays, Vol 4 (Ives, 1925).pdf/58
46 ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE
Men of learning! treat these things with too great refine- ment, in an artificial manner, different from the common and natural one. My page makes love and understands it; read him Leon Hebreu and Ficino;* they speak of him, of his thoughts and his acts, and yet he understands nothing of what they say. I do not recognise in Aristotle the greater part of my ordinary emotions; they have been covered and clothed in a different garment, to be worn by his school. God help them!* Were I of the profession, (c) I would naturalise art as much as they artificialise nature.
(4) Let us put aside Bembo and Equicola.‘ When I write, I readily do without the company and remembrance of books, for fear lest they interfere with my manner; and also because, in truth, the good authors humble me too much and break down my courage. I freely imitate the shift of that painter who, having wretchedly pictured some cocks, forbade his assistants to let any real cocks come into his shop.* (¢) And I should rather need, to give me a little lustre, the device of the musician Antinonydes* who, when he was to give a musical performance, arranged that, before or after him, his audience should listen to other poor singers. (6) But it is less easy for me to do without Plutarch; he
. touches so many subjects’ and is so full of matter, that on
1 Les sciences.
- Leon Hebreo published in 1535 Dialoght de Amore, which was al-
most as well known in Italy as Castiglione’s Cortegiano. Montai owned a copy of it. Marsiglio Ficino is famous for his Latin Lrenelecion of Plato, published in Florence at the end of the fifteenth century, which was the one used by Montaigne. He was the author of sev- eral other translations and of a considerable number of unimportant original works. Montaigne probably had in mind an early one, De Foluptate.
- That is, those who have disguised them. Dieu leur doint bien faire!
“ Two Italian contemporaries of Montaigne, both authors of many works. Among those of the Cardinal Pietro Bembo (1470-1547) are Git Asolani, dialogues on love, so called because they were supposed to take place at Asola. Mario Equicola (1460-1539) wrote at the age of sixty. five Della Natura d’ Amore, spoken of as “a learned and serious work on a trivial subject.”
- See Plutarch, How fo distinguish a flatterer from a friend.
- The proper form of the name is Antigenidas. See Plutarch, Life of
Demetrius.
7 Tlest s1 unioersel.