PREFACE.

...ual? Certainly it seems to me that it belongs only to those who never hope to be cited themselves, to cite no one else; and it is too great an ambition to persuade oneself of having ideas capable of satisfying such a great diversity of readers without borrowing anything from others. For if there ever were authors who could truly consider themselves as such, they were, without controversy, Plutarch, Seneca, and Montaigne Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), the famous French essayist known for his extensive use of classical quotations., who nevertheless left nothing behind in the works of others that could serve to embellish their own discourses. Witness the Greek and Latin verses original: "vers Grecs & Latins" which are found on almost every line of their works; and among others, that Consolation of seven or eight pages which the former Plutarch sent to Apollonius, in which one can count more than one hundred and fifty lines from Homer, and almost as many from Hesiod, Pindar, Sophocles, and Euripides. And furthermore, I do not believe that these new censors of writing styles are so lacking in judgment as to oppose the preceding authorities with that of Epicurus, who, in the three hundred volumes he left behind, had not placed or inserted a single citation,