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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.

OF CONTRASTS.

The soul loves symmetry, it also loves contrasts; this requires to be a good deal explained. For example; if Nature requires of painters and sculptors to proportion the parts of their figures, it requires also that they contrast their different attitudes. One foot placed like another, one member extended like another, are insupportable; the reason of it is, because this symmetry makes the attitudes be almost always the same; which we may observe in Gothic figures, which by this almost always resemble each other; thus there is no more variety in the works of Art. Besides, Nature has not made us thus, and, as she has given us motion, she has not formed us in our actions and manners like pagods; and if men thus stiff and constrained are intolerable, what must it be in the productions of art.

The attitudes must then be contrasted, especially in works of sculpture, which, naturally languid, cannot be animated but by the force of contrast and situation.

But, as we said that the variety which they have endeavoured to give the Gothic, has made it quite uniform; it has often happened, that that variety, which they have endeavoured to give us by the means of contrasts, has become a vicious symmetry and uniformity.

This is not perceived in certain works of painting and sculpture only, but also in the style of some writers, who, in every phrase, contrast the beginning with the end by perpetual antitheses; such as St. Augustine and other authors of the low Latin, and some of our moderns, as St. Evremont. The turn of the phrase always the same, and always uniform, displeases extremely; this perpetual contrast becomes Symmetry, and this opposition always studiously sought for becomes uniformity.

The mind finds so little variety in it, that when you have seen one part of the phrase, you guess at the other: you see words opposed to each other, but opposed always in the same manner: you see a turn of phrase, but it is always the same.

Many painters have fallen into this fault, of putting contrasts every where, and without art: so that when one sees one figure the disposition of those next it can easily be divined: this continual diversity becomes something of a resemblance. Besides, Nature, which places every thing in disorder, never discovers an affectation of a perpetual contrast; without adding further, that she does not put all bodies in motion, and in a forced motion; she is more various than to do this; she places some in rest, and gives to others different kinds of movement.

If the intelligent part of the soul loves variety, the sensitive part of it is no less fond of it; for the soul cannot long bear the same situation, because it is joined to a body, which cannot endure it. That our soul may be excited, the spirits must flow in the nerves: but there are in this two things, a lassitude in the nerves, and an intermission of spirits which flow no more, or are dissipated from those places where they run.

Thus at length every thing fatigues us, especially great pleasures: we quit them always with as much pleasure as we began them; for the fibres, which were the organs of them, have need of rest; we must make use of others more proper to be of service to us, and, so to speak, make a proper division of our toil.

Our Soul grows tired with enjoyment; not to perceive any pleasure at all is to fall into a state of lifeless insensibility, which quite oppresses it. We find a remedy for all this by varying its modifications: it feels, and it does not grow tired.