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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 XXXVII.

To Abbé Venuti.

MY dear Abbé, do not flatter yourself with the vain hope of receiving a letter from the triumphant pen of Abbé de Guasco. If you were indeed a discarded minister of foreign affairs‡ , he might repair to your house with the kind intention of comforting you. The good man’s occupation now is to run his eye over all the new pamphlets, and other fugitive publications—or with a most obliging prodigality to accommodate his bad stomach to all the invitations which he receives from foreign ambassadors. He nevertheless ruins his breast in the service of his Cantimir, and of his Clement the Fifth. For notwithstanding all the trouble he takes to animate Cantimir, it will always be deemed a cold, and uninteresting work. But the fault was in his late Excellence, not in our friend —.

There is now no likelihood of my going to England; there is a much stronger probability of my retiring to La Brede. I am now writing a letter of congratulation to president De la Lane on his reception at the academy. Bonardi, who is president of that academy, has been to visit and give me a detail of all the dinners he has been at since his return among all the fashionable wits who give dinners, with the genealogy of each invited to dinner* . He tells me that he has addressed his first letter to the newly adopted associate. And I am of opinion that you will think this was quite according to rule. I observe that our academy is converting itself into a society of Free Masons, with this difference that there is neither drinking nor singing, but there is much building. Mr. de Tourni is our King Hiram; he will furnish us with workmen, but I doubt that he will supply us with cedar.

I believe the Prince de Craon is actually at Vienna, but he will soon be in Lorraine, and if you will send me your letter, I will forward it to him. I must now tell you some news from Italy concerning The Spirit of Laws. The Duke de Nivernois wrote about three weeks ago to Mr. de Forqualquier, in such a commendatory manner, as that it would be impossible for me to repeat without blushing. About two days ago he received another from him, wherein he is informed that as soon as the work appeared at Turin, the king of Sardinia read it; I cannot even dare to repeat what he has said on the subject. Let the following fact be sufficient; he gave it to his son the Duke de Savoi to peruse, and that prince has read it twice—Mr. de Breille informs me that his royal pupil has declared he will study it during life.—There must, to be sure, appear a great deal of coxcombry in me to tell you this anecdote. But as it is of public notoriety, why may you not learn it from me as well as from any body else. You must now naturally conclude, that I have the most implicit reliance in the judgment of Italian princes.—Marquis de Breille assures me that his Royal Highness the Duke de Sovoi is blessed with an exalted genius, lively conception, and solid judgement to a wonderful degree.

Huart, the bookseller, is very desirous of having the translation of the beginning of the Temple of Gnidus into Latin verse by Doctor Clancy* to join with the Italian translation* , and theoriginal. Now try which you can get for me, either an amanuensis copy of those verses, or a consent from the academy to oblige me with a printed one, which I shall speedily return.

But a-propos the Portrait of Madame de Mirepoix is extolled to the highest degree both at Paris and Versailles. I have no way contributed towards its good fortune in the city of Bourdeaux, so far on the contrary, that I had dispatched thither Abbé de Guasco to malignly criticise it. Now you who are the wit of all wits, ought to translate it, which translation I would send to Madame de Mirepoix actually in London. I have not a copy of it, but either the President Barbot, or M. du Pin has. You know very well it was but a stroke of fancy hit out at Luneville, as a momentary amusement for the king of Poland.

I had forgotten to observe to you, that there is a compensation of all things in this world. I have already informed you of the favourable judgments in Italy relative to The Spirit of Laws. There is soon to appear in Paris a large and formidable criticism on that work, written by M. Dupin, a farmer general; so I am now to be summoned before the tribunal of tax-gatherers, and excisemen, as I had been sometime ago before the journalists of Trevoux. Farewell, my dear Abbé, this letter is in the Bonardi manner† . I salute and I embrace you with all my heart.

Do not however be the dupe of the translation which I desire; for if your mind does not impel you kindly; it is not worth the while that you should mispend a quarter of an hour’s time in thinking about it.

Paris.

[‡ ]Marquis d’Argenson, the former minister of foreign affairs, after his dismission, gave a dinner to his brother members on all the meeting days of the academy, thus to indemnify himself with the company of literary men for the want of employment; and Abbé de Guasco, lately admitted into the Academy of Inscriptions, was enlisted in the number of this convivial band.

[* ]This is an humorous allusion to the very singular study of a gentleman in Languedoc, whose favourite object was to know the genealogy of all the families, which he had any knowledge of, and this was the common subject of his conversation with literary men. Abbé Benardi in a late tour through that part of France, paid a visit to this gentleman in his patrimonial castle, and enriched his mind with a very extensive genealogical erudition, which he never failed to display on his return to Paris. He was wont to go sometimes, and, as he thought, to favour M. de Montesquieu with a discharge of it; which unwisned-for communication was very unwelcome, and made him often lose precious hours.

[* ]A learned English gentleman, through sickness become quite blind; was an excellent Latin poet, and during his sojournment at Paris, undertook to translate the Temple of Gnidus into Latin verse; but there hat not appeared more than the first canto.

[* ]The work of Abbé Venuti. Mr. Vespasiano gave a new translation of Mr. de Montesquieu’s Temple of Gnidus in the Italian language in the year 1766, in twelves.

[† ]Mention has been already made of this writer, who was very conversant in the history of the modern literature of France, but very prolix in his own writings, and in his letters. Dying, he left a great number of manuscripts upon anonymous, and pseudonimous authors.