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signed, in many instances, to that congeries of symptoms so well described by Dr. Hamilton in his valuable work on the use of Purgatives. To the ample testimony in favour of the extensive employment of these medicines in this disease, the result of the practice of this dispensafy, might, if necessary give additional weight. It ought not however to be concealed that in some cases,

after a long use of cathartics, the cure has appeared to be accelerated by the administration of antimonial diaphoretics.

Such are the few remarks, which a desire to comply with custom, rather than any conviction of their importance has induced me to offer on the diseases which have fallen under my own inspection. York-street.

S. L.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF DISTINGUISHED PERSONS.

AN EULOGIUM ON PRESIDENT MON

TESQUIEU; BY MONSIEUR D'ALEM

BERT.

CHA

HARLES DE SECONDAT, Baron of La Brede and Montesquieu, late president a Morter of the parliament of Bourdeaux, member of the French academy, of the royal academy of sciences and belles lettres of Prussia, and of the royal society of London, was born at the castle of La Brede, near Bourdeaux, the 18th of January, 1689, of a noble family of Guyenne. His great-grandfather, John de Secondat, steward of the household to Henry the second, king of Navarre, and afterwards to Jane daughter of that king, who married Antony of Bourbon, purchased the estate of Montesquieu for the sum of 10,000 livres, which this princess gave him by an authentic deed, as a reward for his probity and services.

Henry the third, king of Navarre, afterwards Henry fourth, king of France, erected the lands of Montesquieu into a barony, in favour of Jacob de Secondat, son of John, first one of the gentlemen in ordinary of the bed-chamber to this prince, and afterwards colonel of the regiment of Chatillon. John Gaston de Secondat, his second son, having married a daughter of the first pre

sident of the parliament of Bourdeaux, purchased the office of president a Mortier in this society. He had several children, one of whom entered into the service, distinguished himself in it, and quitted it very early in life. This was the father of Charles de Secondat, author of the Spirit of Laws. These particulars may perhaps appear misplaced, at the beginning of the Eloge of a philo sopher, whose name stands so little in need of ancestors; but let us not envy their memory that eclât which this name reflects upon it.

The early marks of his genius, a presage sometimes so deceitful, was not so in Charles de Secondat; he discovered very soon what he one day would be, and his father employed all his attention to cultivate this rising genius, the object of his hoje and of his tenderness. At the age of twenty, young Montesquieu already prepared materials for the Spirit of Laws, by a well digested extract from those immense volumes which compose the body of the civil law: thus heretofore Newton laid in his early youth the foundation of works, which have rendered him immortal. The study of juris-prudence, however, though less dry to M. de Montesquieu, than to the most part

of those who apply to it, because he studied it as a philosopher, was not sufficient for the extent and activity of his genius. He inquired deeply at the same time, into subjects still more important and more delicate,* and discussed them in silence, with that wisdom, with that decency, and with that equity, which he has since discovered in his works.

A brother of his father, president a Mortier of the parliament of Bourdeaux, an able judge and virtuous citizen, the oracle of his own society and of his province, having lost an only son, and wanting to preserve in his own corps, that elevated spirit, which he had endeavoured to infuse into it, left his fortune and his office to M. de Montesquieu. He had been one of the counsellors of the parliament of Eourdeaux, since the 24th of February, 1714, and was received president a Mortier the 13th of July, 1716.

Some years after, in 1722, during the king's minority, his society employed him to present remonstrances upon occasion of a new impost. Placed between the throne and the people, he filled, like a respectful subject, and courageous magistrate, the employment, so noble, and so little envied, of making the cries of the unfortunate reach the Sove reign the public misery, represents ed with as much address, as force of argument, obtained that justice which it demanded. This success, 'tis true, much more unfortunately for the state than for him, was of as short continuance, as if it had been unjust. Scarcely had the voice of the people ceased to be heard, but the impost, which had been suppressed, was replaced by another:

It was a work in the form of letters, the purpose of which was to prove that the idolatry of most of the Pagans did not appear to deserve eternal damnation.

but the good citizen had done his duty.

He was received the 3d of April, 1710, into the academy of Bourdeaux, which was then only beginning. A taste for music, and for works of pure entertainment, had at first assembled together the mem bers who composed it. M. de Mov tesquieu believed, with reason, that the rising ardour and talents of his friends might be employed with still greater advantage in physical subjects. He was persuaded that na ture, so worthy of being beheld every where, found also in all places eyes worthy of viewing her; that, on the contrary, works of taste, not admitting of mediocrity, and the metropolis, being the centre of men of abilities, and opportunities of improvement in this way, it was too difficult to gather together at a distance from it, a sufficient number of distinguished writers. He looked upon the societies for belles lettres, so strangely multiplied in our provinces, as a kind, or rather as a shadow of literary luxury, which is of prejudice to real opulence, without even presenting us with the appearance of it. Luckily the Duke de la Force, by a prize which be had just founded at Bourdeaux, seconded these rational and just designs. It was judged that an experiment properly made would be preferable to a weak discourse, or a bad poem; and Bourdeaux got an academy of sciences.

M. de Montesquieu, not at all eager to show himself to the public, seemed, according to the expression of a great genius, to wait for an age ripe for writing. It was not till 1721, that is to say, at 32 years of age, that he published the Persian Letters. The Siamois, and the serious and comic amusements, might have furnished him with the idea of it; but he excelled his model. The de

scription of oriental manners, real or supposed, of the pride and phlegm of Asiatic love, is but the smallest object of these letters; it only serves, so to speak, as a pretence for a delicate satire upon our manners, and for treating of several important subjects, which the author went to the bottom of, while he only appeared to glance at them. In this kind of moving picture, Usbec chiefly exposes, with as much genteel easiness as energy, whatever amongst us most struck his penetrating eyes; our way of treating the most silly things seriously, aud of turning the most important into a joke; our conversations which are so blustering and so frivolous; our impatience even in the midst of pleasure itself; our prejudices and our actions perpetually in contradiction with our understandings; so much love of glory joined with so much respect for the idol of court favour; our courtiers so mean and so vain; our exterior politeness to, and our real contempt of strangers, or our affected regard for them; the fantasticness of our tastes, than which there is nothing lower, but the eagerness of all Europe to adopt them; our barbarous disdain for the two most respectable occupa tions of a citizen, commerce and magistracy; our literary disputes so keen and so useless; our rage for writing before we think, and for judging before we understand. To this picture, which is lively but without malice, he opposes, in the apo, logue of the Troglodites, the description of a virtuous people, become wise by misfortunes. A piece worthy of the portico. In another place, he represents philosophy, which had been a long time smothered, appearing all of a sudden, regaining by a rapid progress, the time which he had lost; penetrating even amongst the Russians at the voice of a genius which invites her;

BELFAST MAG. NO. XXXV.

while, among other people of Europe, superstition, like a thick atmosphere, prevents that light which surrounds them on all hands from reaching them. In fine, by the principles which he has established concerning the nature of ancient and modern government, he presents us with the bud of those bright ideas, which have been since developed by the author in his great work.

These different subjects, deprived at present of the graces of novelty which they had when the Persian Letters first appeared, will for ever preserve the merit of that original character which the author has had the art to give them. A merit by so much the more real, that in this case, it proceeds alone from the genius of the writer, and not from that foreign veil with which he covered himself: for Usbec acquired, during his abode in France, not only so perfect a knowledge of our morals, but even so strong a tincture of our manners, that his style makes us often forget his country. This small defect in point of probability, was perhaps not without design and address: when he was exposing our follies and vices, he wanted without doubt also to do justice to our advantages. He was fully conscious of the insipidity of a direct panegyric; he has more delicately praised us, by so often assuming our own air to satirize us more agrecably.

Notwithstanding the success of this work, M. de Montesquieu did not openly declare himself the author of it. Perhaps he thought that by this means he would more easily escape that literary satire, which spares anonymous writings the more willingly, because it is always the person and not the work which is the aim of its darts. Perhaps he was afraid of being attacked on account of the pretende contrast of the Persian Letters with the gravity of his office;

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"a sort of reproach," said he, "which critics never fail to make, because it requires no effort of genius." But his secret was discovered, and the public already pointed him out to the French academy. The event demonstrated how prudent M. de Montesquieu's silence had been. Usbec expresses himself sometimes freely enough, not concerning the fundamentals of christianity, but about matters which too many people affect to confound with christianity itself; about the spirit of persecution with which so many christians have been animated; about the temporal usurpations of ecclesiastic pow. er; about the excessive multiplication of monasteries, which deprive the state of subjects, without giving worshippers to God; about some opinions which have in vain been at tempted to be established as principles; about our religious disputes, always violent and always fatal. If he appears any where to touch upon more delicate questions, and which more nearly interest the christian religion, his reflections weighed with justice, are in fact very favourable to revelation; because he only shows how little human reason left to itself, knows concerning these subjects. In a word, among the genuine letters of M. de Montesquieu, the foreign printer had inserted some by another hand and they ought at least, before the author was condemned, to have distinguish ed which properly belonged to him. Without regard to these considerations, on the one hand, hatred under the name of zeal, and on the other, zeal without discernment or understanding, rose and united themselves against the Persian Letters. Informers, a species of men dangerous and base, which even in a wise government are unfortunately sometimes listened to, alarmed, by an unfaithful extract, the piety of the ministry. M. de

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Montesquieu, by the advice of his friends, supported by the public voice, having offered himself for that place in the French academy, vacant by the death of M. de Sacy; the minister wrote a letter to the academy, that his majesty would never agree to the election of the author of the Persian Letters: that he had not read the book; but that persons in whom he placed confidence, had informed him of their poisonous and dangerous tendency. M. de Montesquieu perceived what a stroke such an accusation might be to his person, his family, and the tran. quillity of his life. He neither put so high a price upon literary ho nours, either keenly to seek them, or to affect to disdain them, when they came in his way, nor in a word, to regard the simple want of them as a mifortune. But a perpetual exé clusion, and especially the motives of that exclusion, appeared to hing to be an injury. He saw the minister, declared to him that for particular reasons he did not own the Persian Letters; but that he would be still farther from disowning a work for which he believed he had no reason to blush; and that he ought to be judged after a reading, and not upon an information: at last the minister did what he ought to have begun with; he read the book, loved the author, and learned to place his confidence better. The French academy was not deprived of one of its greatest ornaments; and France had the happiness to preserve a subject which superstition or ca lumny was ready to deprive her of. For M. de Montesquieu had declared to the government, that after that kind of affront they were about to put upon him, he would go among foreigners, who with open arms offered to receive him, in quest of that safety, that repose, and perhaps those rewards, which

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he might have hoped for in his own country. The nation would have deplored this loss, and the disgrace of it would notwithstanding have fallen upon it.

The late marshal D'Estrees, at that time director of the French academy, conducted himself upon this occasion like a virtuous courtier, and a person of truly elevated mind: he was neither afraid of abusing his credit, nor of endangering it; he supported his friend, and justified Socrates. This act of courage, so dear to learning, so worthy of being imitated at present, and so honourable to the memory of marshal D'Estrees, ought not to have been forgot in his panegyric.

M. de Montesquieu was received the 24th of January, 1728. His discourse is one of the best which has been pronounced upon a like occasion its merit is by so much the greater, that those who were to be received, till then confined by those forms, and by those Eloges which were in use, and to which a kind of prescription subjected them, had not as yet dared to step over this circle to treat of other subjects, or had not at least thought of comprehending them in it. Even in this state of constraint he had the happiness to succeed. Amongst several strokes with which his discourse shines we may easily distinguish the deep thinking writer by the singular portrait of Cardinal Richlieu, who taught France the secret of its strength, and Spain that of its weakness; who freed Germany from their chains, and gave her new ones. We must admire Monsieur de Montesquieu for having been able to overcome the difficulty of his subject, and we ought to pardon those who have not had the same

success.

The new academician was by so much the more worthy of this title, that he had not long before renounc

ed every other business to give himself entirely up to his genius and taste. However important the place which he occupied was, with whatever judgment and integrity he might have fulfilled its duties, he perceived that there were objects more worthy of employing his talents; that a citizen is accountable to his country and to mankind for all the good which he can do; and that he could be more useful to the one and the other, by instructing them with his writings, than he could be by determining a few particular disputes in obscurity. All these reflections determined him to sell his office. He was no longer a magistrate, and was now only a man of letters.

But to render himself useful by his works to different nations, it was necessary that he should know them; it was with this view that he undertook to travel his aim was to examine every where the natural and moral world, to study the laws and constitution of every country; to visit the learned, the writers, the celebrated artists; every where to seek for those rare and singular geniuses, whose conversation sometimes supplies the place of many years ob. servation and residence. M. de Montesquieu might have said, like Democritus; "I have forgot nothing to instruct myself: I have quitted my country and travelled over the universe, the better to know truth: I have seen all illustrious personages of my time." But there was this difference between the French Democritus and him of Abdera, that the first travelled to instruct men, and the second to laugh at them.

He first went to Vienna, where he often saw the celebrated prince Eugene. This hero, so fatal to France (to which he might have been so useful) after having given a check to the fortune of Lewis XIV, and hum

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