Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/815

Rh M O N M O N 785 nolle, he does not seem to have preserved in old age the passion for society which had marked his youth. A rather dubious description, published long after his death, repre sents him as &quot; wandering in his woods from morn to night with a white cotton nightcap on his head, and a vine prop on his shoulder.&quot; This, in the florid language of its time (the Republican period), is probably only an imaginative expression of his known interest in managing his estate. But he certainly spent much of his later years in the country, though he sometimes visited Paris, and on one visit had the opportunity, which he is likely to have en joyed, of procuring the release of his admirer La Beaumelle from an imprisonment which La Beaumelle had suffered at the instance of Voltaire. He is said also to have been instrumental in obtaining a pension for Piron. Indeed, indigent or unlucky men of letters found in him a constant protector, and that not merely at the royal expense. Nor did he by any means neglect literary composition. The curious little romance of Arsace ft Jsmenie, a short and unfinished treatise on Taste, many of his published Pensees, and much unpublished matter date from the period subsequent to the Esprit des Lois. He did not, however, live many years after the appearance of his great work. At the end of 1754 he visited Paris, with the intention of getting rid of the lease of his house there and finally retiring to La Brede. He was shortly after taken ill with an attack of fever, which seems to have affected the lungs, and in less than a fortnight he died, on 10th February 1755, aged sixty-six. He was buried in the church of Saint Sulpice with little pomp, and the Revolution obliterated all trace of his remains. The literary and philosophical merits of Montesquieu and his position, actual and historical, in the literature of France and of Europe, form a subject of rather unusual interest in its kind. At the beginning of this century the vicomte de Bonald classed him with Racine and Bossuet, as the object of a &quot;religious veneration&quot; among Frenchmen. But Bonald was not quite a suitable spokes man for France, and it may be doubted whether the author of the Esprit des Lois lias ever really occupied any such position in his own country. For a generation after his death he remained indeed the idol and the great authority of the moderate reforming party in France, and at such times as that party recovered power during the revolutionary period Montesquieu recovered vogue with it. But the tendency of the century and a quarter which have passed since his death has been to reduce the numbers and position of this party ever more and more, and Montesquieu is not often quot able, or quoted, either by Republicans, Bonapartists, or Legitimists, at the present day. Again, his serious works contain citation of or allusion to a vast number of facts, and the exact (let it be hoped that posterity will not call it the pettifogging) criticism of our time challenges the accuracy of these facts. Although he was really the founder, or at least one of the founders, of the sciences of comparative politics and of the philosophy of history, his descend ants and followers in these sciences think they have outgrown him. In France his popularity has always been dubious and con tested. It is a singular thing that, until within the last decade, there lias been no properly edited edition of his works, and nothing even approaching a complete biography of him, the place of the latter being occupied by the meagre and rhetorical Elogcs of the last century. He is, his chief admirers assert, hardly read at all in France to-day, and a tolerable familiarity with modern French literature enables its possessor to corroborate this by first-hand knowledge, to the effect that no writer of equal eminence is so little quoted. The admirers just mentioned attempt to explain the fact by confessing that Montesquieu, great as he is, is not altogether great according to French principles. It is not only that he is an Anglo-maniac, but that he is rather English than French in style and thought. His work, at least the Esprit, is lacking in the pro portion and the almost ostentatious lucidity of arrangement which a Frenchman demands. His sentences are often enigmatical, and suggestive rather than clear. He is almost entirely dispassionate in politics, but he lacks the unswerving deductive consistency which Frenchmen love in that science. His wit, it is said, is quaint and a little provincial, his style irregular and in no definite genre. Some of these things may be allowed to exist and to be defects in Montesquieu, but they are balanced by merits which render them almost insignificant. Of the minor works, which are on the whole rather unworthy of their author, nothing need be said here. In the few Pensees, and in detached thoughts of the same kind scattered about the tolerably numerous letters which have reached us, there is much acuteness and point, as also in some of the best sentences of the Considerations and of the Esprit. But no one would put Montesquieu as a pcnsee, or maxim, writer beside La Roche foucauld and Joubert, Pascal and Vauvenargues. It is on his three principal works that his fame does and must rest. Each one of these is a masterpiece in its kind. It is doubtful whether the Lcttrcs Pcrsancs yield at their best either in wit or in giving lively pictures of the time to the best of Voltaire s similar work, though they are more unequal. There is, moreover, the great difference between Montesquieu and Voltaire that the former is a rational reformer, and not a mere persijicur or frondcur, to whom fault finding is more convenient for showing oil his wit than acquiescence. Of course this last description does not fully or always describe Voltaire, but it often does. It is seldom or never applicable to Montesquieu. Only one of Voltaire s own charges against the book and its author must be fully allowed. He is said to have replied to a friend who urged him to give up his habit of sneering at Montesquieu, &quot;il est coupable de lese-poesie,&quot; and this is true. Not only are Montesquieu s remarks on poetry (he himself occasion ally wrote verses, and very bad ones) childish, but he is never happy in purely literary appreciation. The Considerations are noteworthy, not only for the complete change of style (which from the light and mocking tone of the Lcttrcs becomes grave, weighty, and sustained, with abundance of striking expression), but for the profundity and originality of the views, and for the completeness with which the author carries out his plan. These words except, perhaps, the last clause apply with increasing force to the Esprit des Lois. The book has been accused of desultoriness, but this arises, in part at least, from a misapprehension of the author s design. At the same time, it is impossible to say that the equivocal meaning of the word &quot; law,&quot; which has misled so many reasoners, has not sometimes misled Montesquieu himself. For the most part, however, he keeps the promise of his sub-tit?e (given above) with fidelity, and applies it with exhaustive care. It is only in the last few books, which have been said to be a kind of appendix, that something of irrelevancy suggests itself. The real importance of the Esprit des Lois, how ever, is not that of a formal treatise on law, or even on polity. It is that of an assemblage of the most fertile, original, and inspiriting views on legal and political subjects, put in language of singular sugges- tiveness and vigour, illustrated by examples which are always apt and luminous, permeated by the spirit of temperate and tolerant de sire for human improvement and happiness, and almost unique in its entire freedom at once from doctrinairianism, from visionary enthusiasm, fiom egotism, and from an undue spirit of system. As for the style, no one who does not mistake the definition of that much used and much misused word can deny it to Montesquieu. He has in the Esprit little ornament, but his composition is wholly admirable. Every now and then there are reminiscences, perhaps a little more close than is necessary, of the badinage of the Lcttrcs Pcr- sancs, but these are rare, and the author s wit is for the most used only to lighten his pages. Yet another great peculiarity of this book, as well as of the Considerations, has to be noticed. The genius of the author for generalization is so great, his instinct in political science so sure, that even the falsity of his premises frequently fails to vitiate his conclusions. He has known wrong, but he has thought right. The sole edition of Montesquieu which need be mentioned here is that of Edouani Laboulaye (7 vols., Paris, 1875-1870), the sole biography that of Louis Vian (Paris, second edition, 187 . )- From the latter the facts of the above notice are principally drawn. The bibliography of Montesquieu s published works is not of any special interest, but in respect of ancalota he occupies a singular position. There is known to exist at La Brede a great mass of MSS. materials for the Esprit des Lois, additional Lcttre.s Persanes, essays and fragments of all kinds, diaries, letters, notebooks, and so forth. The present possessors, however, who represent Montesquieu, though not in the direct mule line, have hitherto refused permission to examine these to all editors and critics, though the publication of some of them has been vaguely promised. At present they are chiefly known by a paper contributed nearly half a century ago to tho Transactions of the Academy of Agen (1834). (G- SA.) MONTEVERDE, CLAUDIO (1568-1643), the inventor of the &quot; free style &quot; of musical composition, was born at Cre mona in 1568 ; he was engaged at an early age as violist to the duke of Mantua, and studied composition with some success under Ingegneri, the duke s &quot;maestro di capella,&quot; though without thoroughly mastering the difficulties of musical science. His knowledge of counterpoint was limited, and his ear imperfect, but he was a bold experimenter, and his undisguised empiricism led to discoveries which exercised a lasting influence upon the progress of art. He was the first composer who ventured to use unprepared dissonances^ employing them first in his madrigals, the beauty of which they utterly destroyed, but afterwards introducing them into music of another kind with such excellent effect that their value was universally recognized, and all opposition to their use effectually silenced. In 1603 he succeeded VVT - oo