Lucian-Aristophanes.  I know another scholar whose devotion and worship is given to a very different man—­to Bossuet:  he is preparing a complete, exact, detailed history of the life and works of the great bishop.  And as tastes differ, and “human fancy is cut into a thousand shapes” (Montaigne said that), Montaigne also has his devotees, he who, himself, was so little of one:  a sect is formed round him.  In his lifetime he had Mademoiselle de Gournay, his daughter of alliance, who was solemnly devoted to him; and his disciple, Charron, followed him closely, step by step, only striving to arrange his thoughts with more order and method.  In our time amateurs, intelligent men, practice the religion under another form:  they devote themselves to collecting the smallest traces of the author of the Essays, to gathering up the slightest relics, and Dr. Payen may be justly placed at the head of the group.  For years he has been preparing a book on Montaigne, of which the title will be—­“Michel de Montaigne, a collection of unedited or little known facts about the author of the Essays, his book, and his other writings, about his family, his friends, his admirers, his detractors.”

While awaiting the conclusion of the book, the occupation and amusement of a lifetime, Dr. Payen keeps us informed in short pamphlets of the various works and discoveries made about Montaigne.

If we separate the discoveries made during the last five or six years from the jumble of quarrels, disputes, cavilling, quackery, and law-suits (for there have been all those), they consist in this--

In 1846 M. Mace found in the (then) Royal Library, amongst the “Collection Du Puys,” a letter of Montaigne, addressed to the king, Henri iv., September 2, 1590.

In 1847 M. Payen printed a letter, or a fragment of a letter of Montaigne of February 16, 1588, a letter corrupt and incomplete, coming from the collection of the Comtesse Boni de Castellane.

But, most important of all, in 1848, M. Horace de Viel-Castel found in London, at the British Museum, a remarkable letter of Montaigne, May 22, 1585, when Mayor of Bordeaux, addressed to M. de Matignon, the king’s lieutenant in the town.  The great interest of the letter is that it shows Montaigne for the first time in the full discharge of his office with all the energy and vigilance of which he was capable.  The pretended idler was at need much more active than he was ready to own.

M. Detcheverry, keeper of the records to the mayoralty of Bordeaux, found and published (1850) a letter of Montaigne, while mayor, to the Jurats, or aldermen of the town, July 30, 1585.

M. Achille Jubinal found among the manuscripts of the National Library, and published (1850), a long, remarkable letter from Montaigne to the king, Henri iv., January 18, 1590, which happily coincides with that already found by M. Mace.

Lastly, to omit nothing and do justice to all, in a “Visit to Montaigne’s Chateau in Perigord,” of which the account appeared in 1850, M. Bertrand de Saint-Germain described the place and pointed out the various Greek and Latin inscriptions that may still be read in Montaigne’s tower in the third-storey chamber (the ground floor counting as the first), which the philosopher made his library and study.