Both of these writers have the style that I associate with Montaigne- rambling, often entirely off-topic, with many digressions into and out of learned discourse. Tristram Shandy purports to be and autobiography, though it is only a novel, and OTSOG is a search into the origin of the quote which most people associate with Newton: "If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants". Montaigne's Essays are a sort of combination of the two styles- they purport to be autobiographical, and intended for the private use of the author's family, yet they were published twice in his lifetime with his consent and assistance, and their subject is whatever comes into their author's head, though he does write and support a plethora of theses, and quote extensively from the Ancients (Latin was his first language), even if not entirely in context.