compiled from a laborious search into authentic. documents, and the records lodged in the Tower, and at the Rolls. A little before he died, he told me, that he had determined to throw out of the collection of all his works, which was then soon to be published, his first juvenile performance, the Persian * Letters, written, 1735, in imita tion * Montesquieu himself also says, that in this agreeable work there were some juvenilia that he would wish to correct: "for though a Turk ought necessarily to see, think, and speak, like a Turk, and not like a Christian, yet many persons do not attend to this circumstance, in reading my Persian Letters." See an entertaining collection of his Original Letters, p. 180. In this collection are some curious particulars relating to his great work, The Spirit of Laws. He tells his friend, the Count de Guasco, "Though many kings have not done me that honour, yet I know one who has read my work; and M. de Maupertuis has informed me, that this monarch is not always of my opi nion. I have answered Maupertuis, and told him, I would lay a wager, I could easily put my finger on those passages which the King dislikes." In page 166, he thus speaks of Voltaire : "Quant à Voltaire, il a trop d'esprit pour m'entendre; tous les livres qu'il lit, il les fait, après quoi il approuve ou critique ce qu'il a fait. And afterwards, speaking of Voltaire's dismis sion from Berlin, "Voilà donc Voltaire qui paroit ne sçavoir ou reposer sa tête; ut eadem tellus quæ modo victori defuerat, deesset ad sepulturam. Le bon esprit vaut beaucoup mieux que le bel esprit," p. 198. It is much to be lamented, that the History of Louis the Eleventh, which Montesquieu had written, was burnt by a mistake of his secretary, p. 98. Mr. 2 Stanley, tion of those of his friend Montesquieu, whom he had known and admired in England; in which he said there were principles and remarks, that he wished to retract and alter. I told him, that, notwithstanding his caution, the booksellers (as, in fact, they have done) would preserve and insert these Stanley, for whom Montesquieu had a sincere esteem and regard, told me, that Montesquieu assured him, he had received more information from the Commentaries of Azo on the Codex and Digest, (a famous civilian of Bologna in the twelfth century,) than from any other writer on the civil law. He is said to have had 10,000 scholars. Trithemius mentions him, c. 487. See Arisii Cremonam Litteratam. Tom. i. p. 89. I beg to add, that Lyttelton was not blind to the faults and blemishes of his friend Montesquieu. See notes on the History of the Life of Henry II. p. 291, 4to. where he is censured for an excessive desire of saying something new upon every subject, and differing from the common opinions of mankind. That accomplished lady the Duchess D'Aiguillon constantly attended Montesquieu in his last illness, to the time of his death, 1755. One day, during her absence of a few hours from his chamber, an Irish Jesuit, Father Roth, (author of some severe criticisms against the Paradise Lost,) got introduced to the dying philosopher, and insisted on having the key of his bureau, that he might take away his papers. When the Duchess suddenly returned, and reproached the Jesuit for this proceeding, he only answered, "Madam, I must obey my superiors." It was owing to the interposition of the celebrated physician, Van Swieten, that the Spirit of Laws was permitted to be sold and read at Vienna. these letters. Another little piece, written also in his early youth, does him much honour; the Observations on the Life of Tully, in which, perhaps, a more dispassionate and impartial character of Tully is exhibited, than in the panegyrical volumes of Middleton. 38. Nunc in Aristippi furtim præcepta relabor.* Sometimes with Aristippus, or St. Paul, There is an impropriety, and indecorum, in joining the name of the most profligate parasite of the court of Dionysius with that of an apostle. In a few lines before, the name of Montaigne is not sufficiently contrasted by the name of Locke ; the place required that two philosophers, holding very different tenets, should have been introduced. Hobbes might have been opposed to Hucheson. I know not why he omitted a strong sentiment that follows immediately, Et mihi res, non me rebus subjungere conor.‡ Which * Ver. 19, † Ver. 31. Ver. 20. Which line Corneille took for his motto. 39. Non tamen idcirco contemnas lippus inungi.* I'll do what MEAD and Cheselden advise.t MEAD, a judge of pure Latinity, having disputed with Pope on the impropriety of the expres sion, Amor publicus, on Shakespear's monument, ended the controversy by giving up his opinion, and saying to him, Omnia vincit amor & nos cedamus amori. I mention this circumstance, because it may be amusing to the lovers of anecdotes, just to add, that, in a public inscription at Rheims, in France, RACINE, who drew it up, used the words Amor publicus, in the very same sense. I believe both these great poets were wrong. 40. Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator.‡ * Ver. 29. + Ver. 51. Ver. 38. Be Be furious, envious, slothful, mad, or drunk, I cannot forbear thinking that Horace glanced at his own frailties and imperfections, as he frequently does, in the four last epithets of this verse, in the original. As to envy, he had not a grain of it in his nature. 41. Virtus est vitium fugere. 'Tis the first virtue, vices to abhor, And the first wisdom, to be fool no more.§ DR. * Ver. 61. + As he does at his passion for building, in verse 100, be |