The Essays of Michel de Montaigne 1877 is a collection of essays and letters by Michel de Montaigne. Originally published in French as Essais 1580 this edition was translated by English poet Charles Cotton in the late17th century and republished by William Carew Hazlitt the grandson of renowned English essayist and critic William Hazlitt. No man living is more free from this passion of sorrow than I who yet neither like it in myself nor admire it in others and yet generally the world as a settled thing is pleased to grace it with a particular esteem clothing therewith wisdom virtue and conscience. Foolish and sordid guise In his masterful essays Michel de Montaigne eschews the typical distancing required of the authorial voice in order to investigate public matters through a personal lens. As the subject of his own musings he provides both a stirring selfportrait and an invaluable new voice that will resonate throughout Western literature. Unlike the Enlightenment thinkers who would follow in his footsteps Montaigne is skeptical of the possibility of human certainty and takes an ethical stand against the European colonial project in the Americas and elsewhere. At times serious at others tongueincheek his wideranging topics include conscience politics sorrow solitude fear friendship war and poetry. The Essays of Michel de Montaigne were written at a crossroads in human historybetween Renaissance and Enlightenment Catholicism and Protestantism Montaigne argues that to look outward requires we first look within and that the quest for happiness requires us to accept what we cannot know. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript this edition of The Essays of Michel de Montaigne is a classic of French philosophy reimagined for modern readers.