THE AGE OF EXPANSION 325

Borgia is that he realized Machiavelli's highest ideals of a superb
and successful prince." 1

John Drinkwater has said, in his The Outline oj Literature,
that "The Frenchman Rabelais, the Spaniard Cervantes,
and the Englishman Shakespeare, are without question the
three giants of the Renaissance."2 Since the last of these
is too well-known, only the first two need a word of intro-
duction. It is said of Rabelais that his writing " seems to
belong to the morning of the world, a time of mirth and a
time of expectation." Montaigne was a great essayist and
humanitarian. "The greatest thing of the world," he
declared, " is for a man to know how to be his own." In
one of his essays he quotes an old sailor, who said : " 0 God,
Thou wilt save me, if it be Thy will, and if Thou choosest,
Thou wilt destroy me; but, however it be, I will always
hold my rudder straight." That, says Drinkwater, is Mon-
taigne. Both Rabdais and Montaigne represented the
Renaissance in France.

Cervantes was the author of Don Quixote, which is spoken
of as " "the most beautiful and wonderful gift of the Renais-
sance to the literature of the world," apart from the plays of
Shakespeare. In it the author presents to us the brilliant
pageant of Spanish society in the sixteenth century, but that
pageant is also of humanity and belongs to all time, like
the creations of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Dickens.

Francis Bacon was the typical product of his age: ' the
greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind.1 Like Michael Angelo
and Leonardo da Vinci, he was versatile. He was a states-
man, lawyer, wit, philosopher and man of letters; " and
in each of these several capacities he won a pre-

1. The Outline oj History, p. 781.

2. P. 256.