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• Familiar Letters. By President De Montesquieu.
• Letter I.: To Father Cerati * of the Congregation of the Orators of Saint Philip At Rome.
• Letter II.: To the Same.
• Letter III.: To Monsieur L’abbé Venuti * , At Clerac.
• Letter IV.: To the Abbé Nicolini * , At Florence.
• Letter V.: To Mr. Cerati, At Pisa.
• Letter VI.: To Abbé Venuti At Clerac.
• Letter VII.: To Abbé De Guasco, At Turin.
• Letter VIII.: To the Count of Guasco, Colonel of Foot.
• Letter IX.: To the Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter X.: To the Same.
• Letter XI.: To the Same.
• Letter XII.: To the Countess De Pontac.
• Letter XIII.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XIV.: To Abbé De Guasco At Clerac.
• Letter XV.: To the Same.
• Letter XVI.: To the Same.
• Letter XVII.: To the Same.
• Letter XVIII.: To the Same.
• Letter XIX.: To the Same Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter XX.: To the Same.
• Letter XXI.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XXII.: To Abbé De Guasco, At Aix.
• Letter XXIII.
• Letter XXIV.: To the Same.
• Letter XXV.: To the Same.
• Letter XXVI.: To the Same.
• Letter XXVII.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XXVIII.: To Prince Charles Edward.
• Letter XXIX.: To the Grand Prior Solar, Ambassador From Malta, At Rome.
• Letter XXX.: To the Abbé and Count De Guasco, At Paris.
• Letter XXXI.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XXXII.: To Abbé Venuti.
• Letter XXXIII.: To the Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter XXXIV.: To the Abbé Venuti, At Bourdeaux.
• Letter XXXV.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XXXVI.: To Abbé Venuti.
• Letter XXXVII.: To Abbé Venuti.
• Letter XXXVIII: To the Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter XXXIX.: To Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter Xl.: to the Same.
• Letter Xli.: to the Same.
• Letter Xlii.: to the Same, At Bourdeaux.
• Letter Xliii.: to the Same.
• Letter Xliv.: to the Same Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter Xlv.: to the Same At Vienna.
• Letter Xlvi.: to the Same Abbé De Guasco At Vienna.
• Letter Xlvii.: to the Same, At Verona.
• Letter Xlviii.: to the Same.
• Letter Xlix.: to the Same, At Naples.
• Letter L.: to the Same.
• Letter Li.: to Mr. Cerati.
• Letter Lii.: to the Abbé Marquis Nicolini.
• Letter Liii.: to Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter Liv.: to the Same.
• Letter Lv.: to the Auditor Bertolini, At Florence.
• Letter Lvi.: to Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter Lvii.: a Billet to the Same.
• Letter Lviii.: to the Grand Prior Solar, At Turin.
• Letter Lix.: the Fragment of a Letter From M. De Montesquieu, to the King of Poland, Duke of Lorraine, to Solicit His Majesty For a Place In the Academy of Nantz.
• Letter Lx.: Fragment of the King of Poland’s Answer, to the Foregoing Letter.
• Letter Lxi.: to M. De Solignac, Secretary to the Literary Society At Nantz.
• Letter Lxii.: From M. De Montesquieu. to the Author of a Short View of the Philosophical Works of Lord Bolingbroke.
• Letter Lxiii.: to the Dutchess of Aiguillon.
• Letter Lxiv.: From the Dutchess of Aiguillon, to Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter Lxv.: an Article Taken From a Letter of Baron Secondat De Montesquieu, to the Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter Lxvi.: Article of a Letter to the Same.
• Miscellaneous Pieces of M. De Secondat, Baron De Montesquieu.
• An Oration Pronounced the 24th of January, 1728. By President Montesquieu: When He Was Received Into the French Academy, In the Room of the Late M. De Sacy.
• An Essay Upon Taste, In Subjects of Nature, and of Art.
• Of the Pleasures of the Soul.
• Of the Mental Faculties * .
• Of Curiosity.
• Of the Pleasures of Order.
• Of the Pleasures of Variety.
• Of the Pleasures of Symmetry.
• Of Contrasts.
• Of the Pleasures of Surprize.
• Of Different Causes That Produce Sensation.
• Of Sensibility.
• Of Delicacy.
• Of the Je Ne Scais Quoi.
• The Progression of Surprize.
• Of Beauties Which Result From an Embarrassment of the Soul.
• The Temple of Gnidus.
• The Preface.
• Canto I.
• Canto II.
• Canto III.
• Canto IV.
• Canto V.
• Canto VI.
• Canto VII.
• Cupid Distressed.
• Lysimachus.
• The Analysis of the Spirit of Laws. By M. D’alembert.
• A Defence of the Spirit of Laws. to Which Are Added, Some Explanations.
• Part I.
• Part II.
• The General Idea.
• Of the Counsels of Religion.
• Of Polygamy.
• On Climate.
• Of Toleration.
• Of Celibacy.
• A Particular Error Committed By the Critic.
• Of Marriage.
• Of Usury.
• “of Maritime Usury.
• Part III.: Some Explanations of the Spirit of Laws.

LETTER XXXVI.

To Abbé Venuti.

I HAVE not as yet thanked you my dear Abbé, for the distinguished place you have allotted to me in your triumph* . You are Petrarch, and I nothing of consequence. Mr. Tercier† has written to me to thank you in his name for the copy which I had sent to him; and to assure you that M. Puysieux had received his with the greatest satisfaction‡ . As there have appeared here as yet but very few copies, I shall not be able for some time to let you know the success of the work among us. I have heard it well spoken of, and it seems to me to be of the true poetic turn.

• —Et te fecere Poetam
• Pierides.—

I cannot accustom myself dear Abbé to think you are no longer at Bourdeaux. You have left a number of friends there, that sincerely regret your separation from them; and I am one of those who feel the most upon that occasion. Write to me sometimes. I shall execute your commands in regard to Stuart, and the collection of dissertations. You act very candidly with him; and I think he ought to be highly pleased with your generosity. I shall see Mr. Curne. Abbé le Beuf (or ox) shall to be spoken to, and if he be not a Beuf (or ox)∥ he must perceive that there is but very little to be corrected in your dissertation.

The President Barbot* should find for you the dissertation that is lost like a needle in the bundle of hay, or learned lumber with which his vast and chaostic cabinet is crammed. It was very ridiculous to have been guilty of any incivility to Madame de Pontac, by boasting so much an increase of the rent which we shall not touch; and while too we have so badly managed the affairs of the academy† . Send to me what you propose adding to the dissertations which I have. Farewell my dear Abbé, I salute and embrace you with all my heart.

Paris, October 20, 1750.

[* ]Il trionfo literario della Francia. The literary triumph of France, where in the article of M. de Montesquieu it is said, “if a soul so great as his could have been found in the senate of Rome, her liberty would still survive to the shame of tyrants. His name will last longer than the Tarpeian Rock, and his glory will never fade while Themis delivers her oracles on the judicial benches of France; or that the Gods shall preserve to mortals the foremost of their gifts, that of thinking.”

[† ]A very learned Academician, and one of the first clerks in the office of foreign affairs in Paris. He was well known for his various mortifications, because in quality of royal censor he had given his approbation for printing the book, entitled L’Esprit. He died in the year 1762.

[‡ ]The Poem of Abbé Venuti, is dedicated to M. de Puysieux, who was then the minister of foreign affairs.

[∥ ]An idle punning on the name of Beuf, as already taken notice of; but these familiar letters were not designed by their author for the press.

[* ]He was perpetual secretary to the academy of Bourdeaux, a man of wit, very amiable, and possessed of extensive literature. But he was of a wavering disposition when any thing was to be written or published; which is the reason that the memoirs of this academy are so much in arrears, and that we are deprived of many masterly performances written by himself, and that are buried.

[† ]This alludes to some literary difficulties, because the fore-mentioned secretary of the academy, would never take the trouble of arranging the memoirs in proper order, for the better presenting of them to the publick’s eye.