About Essays
Essays came to us from France. Michel, Sieur de Montaigne, published the first two books of his Essays at Bourdeaux in 1580; when Bacon was about twenty years of age. Hallam 1 speaks thus highly of their originality, as a new style of writing:
“The Essays of Montaigne, the first edition of which appeared at Bordeaux in 1580, make in several respects an epoch in literature, less on account of their real importance, or the novel truths they contain, than of their influence upon the taste and the opinions of Europe. They are the first provocatio ad nopulum, the first appeal from the porch and the academy to the haunts of busy and of idle men, the first book that taught the unlearned reader to observe and reflect for himself on questions of moral philosophy. In an age when every topic of this nature was treated systematically, and in a didactic form, he broke out without connexion of chapters, with all the digressions that levity and garrulous egotism could suggest, with a very delightful, but, at that time, most unusual rapidity of transition from seriousness to gaiety.
It would be to anticipate much of what will demand attention in the ensuing century, were we to mention here the conspicuous writers who, more or less directly, and with more or less of close imitation, may be classed in the school of Montaigne; it embraces, in fact, a large proportion of French and English literature, and especially of that which has borrowed his title of Essays.”
Montaigne’s next edition was published at Bourdeaux in 1582; second edition , reneve et augmentée, and was contained in one volume. An edition also appeared between 1582 and 1587, but no copy of it is now known. Another edition was published at Paris in 1587. A fifth edition appeared at Paris in 1588. Montaigne died on 4 December 1592: and the last edition of his lifetime appeared at Lyons, with the date 1593. Dr. Payen tells us that “Montaigne although he fays ‘I add but I do not correct’ he did often correct even to very light shadings of expressions.”
The influence of Montaigne on some of the greatest writers in England is traced by the possession of copies of John Florio’s translation of the Essays in English, in 1603, by our two chief poets at that time. Both copies are in the British Museum. The one, with pressmark C.28. m.8., bears on its title-page the signature of Jon Benson on, and a Latin note that he bought for seven folidi [shillings] in 1604. The other, with pressmark C.28. m.7., has on a fly-leaf opposite the title-page, the signature Wiln. Shakspeare. Sir F. Madden, a very great authority, in his Observations on an Autograph of Shakespeare, London, 1838, states that this particular autograph “challenges and defies suspicion, and has already passed the ordeal of numerous competent examiners, all of whom have, without a single doubt, expressed their conviction of its genuineness.” He further adduces internal evidence from The Tempest, of Shakespeare’s use of Florio’s translation; in which he has been imitated, by Mr. V.E.P. Charles in his Etudes fur W. Shakespeare, Marie Stuart, et l’Aretin. Paris. 1851.
1 Hallam: Introduction to Literature of Europe, from 1550-1600, vol. ii. 169. Ed. 1839.
Other bibliography: Edward Arber, A Harmony of the Essays, etc., of Francis Bacon, 1895.
Spedding's Coments on Bacon's Essays:
Which Editions?
Among the innumerable editions of Bacon’s essays that have been
published, there are only four which, as authorities for the text, have any original or independent
value; namely those published by Bacon himself in 1597, in 1612, and in 1625; and the
Latin version published by Dr. Rawley in 1638.
- - Spedding’s Works, vol. xii.
Bacon Essays given here:
