It is traditional in the literature on Pierre Bayle to make some refer- ene e to iVlontaigne as one of the masters of skepticism in whose tracks he follows, albeit hardly so eloselyas Charron had. Time and again critics feel the need to mention Montaigne and Bayle in the same context, sometimes to contrast their brands of Pyrrhonism, more often to explain similarities in their ideas and methods, which have frequent- ly been regarded as important steps in the gradual evolution of un- Christian, even anti-Christian, thought. Their names were already associated during Bayle's life, for example, in the mediocre work by Dom Alexis Gaudin, La Distinction et la Nature du Bien et du MaI, Traite ou l'on combat l'erreur des Manicheens, les sentimens de Jvfontaigne & de Charron, & ceux de J. Vfonsieur Bayle. In the nineteen th century, the author of the Dictionnaire historique et critique wa~ generally elassified as a skeptic; and his name was inevi tably linked with the essayist's. In his Port-Royal, Sainte-Beuve pictured Bayle as one of the avowed skeptics in Montaigne's funeral cortege and spoke of both men as "d'autant pIus fourbes qu'ils ne le sont pas toujours. " His later works show that he revised his opinion on each somewhat,l but in this he was unusual for his century.

In 1580 Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) presented a literary project to the public the type of wich had never before been introduced- a collection of Essays with himself as subject. Never before had a writer attempted a literary self-portrait, and in so doing Montaigne named and defined a new literary form, the essay. Brush's critical study of Essays examines the complex process of writing a self-portrait and showing the ways in which it is an entirely differnt enterprise from writing an autobiography. The author discusses how Montaigne revealed his "mind in motion," and the most remarkable feature of that mind, skepticism. He treats Montaigne's development of a conversational voice and explicates how Montaigne's intense self-examination became an evolutionary process which had consequences in his life and literature. The work concludes with a discussion of how Montaigne's self-assigned task of introspection included the formulation of a view of humanity and its ethics. Brush's work fills a gap in scholarship by critically examining the essential loci of the Essays, namely, the creation of a literary self-portrait. The book makes its points convincingly because of Brush's intimacy and command of the essays. Montaigne's works are cited in English translation, and the subject is presented in terms accessible to the non-specialist.