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LETTER LV.: To the Auditor Bertolini, at Florence. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 4 Familiar Letters; Miscellaneous Pieces; The Temple of Gnidus; A Defence of the Spirit of Laws [1777]

Edition used:

The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 4.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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LETTER LV.

To the Auditor Bertolini, at Florence.

I HAVE read two articles in your preface, Sir, with which I am greatly pleased; and take up my pen to certify it to you: and although I have seen them through the medium of self-love, being decorated thereby as for a triumphant festival, yet I think I should not have espied so many beauties, if they had not a real existence. There is one place in particular, which I pray you will retrench, that is concerning the English; and where you say, that I have given a more striking picture of their form of government than any given by their own authors. If the English find this to be so, from the more intimate acquaintance which they must have from their own books, we may be sure, that they will be generous enough to declare it; therefore let us renounce that affair to their decision. I cannot refrain from telling you, Sir, how much I was astonished at your being so thorough a master of our language. I have many thanks to pay you, Sir, for your apology in my behalf, that proceeded from your having understood my work so well, against people who so perversely, or so little understand it, and concerning whom one might safely lay a wager, that they had never read it; I am otherwise very well pleased, and congratulate myself, that some passages in my work, have furnished you with an occasion of making the great queen’s eulogium. I have the honour, Sir, of being with the most genuine sentiments of respect and esteem, your, &c.