Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson

riters of prose. Montaigne talks endlessly on the most trivial subjects without ever becoming trivial. To those who really love reading and have some sympathy with humanity, Montaigne's Essays are a "perpetual refuge and delight," and it is interesting to reflect how far in literary fame this man, who talked about his meals, his horse, and his cat, outshines thousands of scholarly and talented writers, who discussed only the most serious themes in politics and religion. The great English prose writers in the field of the personal essay during the seventeenth century were Sir Thomas Browne, Thomas Fuller, and Abraham Cowley, though Walton's Compleat Angler is a kindred work. Browne's _Religio Medici_, and his delightful _Garden of Cyrus_, old Tom Fuller's quaint Good Thoughts in Bad Times and Cowley's charming Essays are admirable examples of this school of composition. Burton's wonderful Anatomy of Melancholy is a colossal personal essay. Some of the papers of Stee