author, and promoter of the celebrated " Sys tem," which had but a short time previous bouleversed the finances of Europe. It was also here that he met the famous Count Bonneval, who told him the story of his ex traordinary life. From Venice he went to Rome. In this famous capital he viewed the wonders of antiquity with a philosophic eye, and al though he had made no particular study of the polite arts, the good taste and expression of his remarks as he stood before the cele brated triumphs of a Raphael, a Titian, and a Michael Angelo, at once evinced the fact that his mind belonged to the aristocracy of Genius. But more interested in the conver sation of great men than in the admiration of the wonders of art, he hastened to enter into intimate relations with Cardinal Polignac, ambassador from France to the Holy See, and Cardinal Corsini, afterward Pope Clement XII., two of the most learned men of the age. Leaving Italy, he passed into Switzerland, where he remained some time carefully examining the institutions of that ancient and free Republic. Going down the Rhine, he next landed in Holland, the then commercial mart of Europe, and rival of the "Mistress of the Seas." The studies which he seriously began here of the " laws in their relation to commerce " he perfected when later on he crossed over into England. In England he was the admiration of both philosophers and statesmen, and had often the honor to wait on that generous protec tress of the literati, Queen Caroline, who cultivated philosophy on the throne, and whose keen instinct for men of genius at once gave her a just relish for the conversa tion of M. de Montesquieu. By these means he acquired a perfect knowledge of the Eng lish system of government. This kingdom, which glories so much in its laws, was to M. de Montesquieu what in other times the isle of Crete had been to Lycurgus, a school where he improved in knowledge without accepting the whole. Thus, having visited the most civilized and
polished peoples of Europe, and having made the personal acquaintance of the greatest and most learned men of the age, he retired to his seat at La Brede, where during two years he gave the finishing touches to his learned disquisition on the Roman people : "Considerations sur les Causes de la Gran deur des Romains et de leur Decadence," which appeared in 1733, — wonderful work which will live and be studied as long as the philosophy of history shall continue to arrest the attention of great minds. But all these travels and literary labors were but the prelude to the great work which the genius of Montesquieu meditated, and for which he had during a lifetime been gathering materials; namely, his most cele brated work, his monument, in fine, " L'Esprit des Lois," to the arrangement of which he consecrated upward of twenty years. Of this great work, he himself says, that should it meet with success, he would owe it to the majesty of the. subject; and when he contemplates what so many great men of France, England, and Germany have said before him, he confesses himself lost in admiration, though not in courage, for we hear him exclaim with Correggio, " Io anche son pittore!" Of the " Spirit of Laws," it may be truly said that there is no question of public mo rality, politics, or statecraft with which it does not thoroughly deal. The learned author first treats of the laws in general, after which he proceeds to discourse upon the three principal forms of government, the republican, the monarchical, and the des potic, showing the mainspring by which each one is moved. He next enters into the laws derived from and governing these three principal forms of government. He leaves no subject regarding the laws untouched or problem unresolved. He handles the great questions involving the law in all its branches with the pen of a master. Now he quotes from Tacitus in his " De Moribus Germanorum," or Plutarch in his " Lives," to bear him out; now he calls upon the deep medi
