MONTAIGNE AND GERMAN DRUNKENNESS.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—In Montaigne's chapter on drunkenness, the second in the second book of the Easels, there is an odd misquotation from JuvenaL The essayist is arguing that drink does not invariably render men insensible and stupid, and he adduces the case of the German Army ; these soldiers do not forget their orders and order, even when they are in their cups. " Nous veoyons nos Allemands, noyez dans le vin, so souvenir de lens quartier, du mot, et de leer reng : Nec facilis victoria de media et blaesis atque mere titubantibus."
Whether Montaigne was right about German soldiers or not, he was wrong in citing Juvenal, who wrote to exactly the opposite effect about drunkenness. These lines, from the fifteenth satire on the religious riots between two neighbouring townships on the Nile, describe how the one set profited by the debauchery of its rivals ; besides, the poet adds "'tie not hard to overcome men who are drunken, stuttering, and reeling about." What Juvenal wrote was " et facilis." Why did Montaigne change " et " into " nee " ? Was it a slip of memory ? Or did he slyly alter the line to suit his own purpose 2—I am, Sir, &c.,
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