On the other hand, Malebranche and the writers of Port Royal were against him; some reprehended the licentiousness of his writings; others their impiety, materialism, epicureanism.

Even Pascal, who had carefully read the Essays, and gained no small profit by them, did not spare his reproaches.

But Montaigne has outlived detraction.

As time has gone on, his admirers and borrowers have increased in number, and his Jansenism, which recommended him to the eighteenth century, may not be his least recommendation in the nineteenth.

Here we have certainly, on the whole, a first-class man, and one proof of his masterly genius seems to be, that his merits and his beauties are sufficient to induce us to leave out of consideration blemishes and faults which would have been fatal to an inferior writer.
THE LETTERS OF MONTAIGNE.
I.
To Monsieur de MONTAIGNE [This account of the death of La Boetie begins imperfectly.