our souls pure and clean, at that moment at least, wherein we pray to him, and purified from all vicious passions, otherwise we our selves present him the rods wherewith to chastise us. Instead of repairing any thing we have done amiss, we double the wickedness and the offence, whilst we offer to him to whom we are to sue for pardon an affection full of irreverence and hatred. Which makes me not very apt to applaud those whom I observe to be so frequent on their knees, if the actions nearest of kin to prayer do not give me some evidence of reformation.

A man whose whole meditation is continually working upon nothing but impurity, which he knows to be so odious to Almighty God, what can he say when he comes to speak to him? He reforms, but immediately falls into a relapse. If the object of the divine justice, and the presence of his maker, did, as he pretends, strike and chastise his soul, how short soever the repentance might be, the very fear of offending that infinite majesty would so often present itself to his imagination, that he would soon see himself master of those vices that are most natural and habitual in him. But what shall we say of those who settle their whole course of life upon the profit and emolument of sins, which they know to be mortal? How many trades of vocations have we admitted and countenanc'd amongst us, whose very essence is vicious? And he that confessing himself to me, voluntarily told me that he had all his lifetime profess'd and practis'd a religion, in his opinion damnable, and contrary to that he had in his heart, only to preserve his credit, and the honor of his employments, how could his courage suffer so infamous a confession? What can men say to the divine justice upon this subject? Their repentance consisting in a visible and manifest reformation and restitution, they lose the colour of alleging it both to God and man. Are they so impudent as to sue for remission, without satisfaction, and without penitency or remorse?

From the essay on "Prayers."

MONTESQUIEU

(CHARLES LOUIS DE SECONDAT, BARON DE LA BREDE ET DE

M

MONTESQUIEU)

(1689-1755)

ONTESQUIEU'S "Spirit of the Laws," which appeared in 1748,

is one of the most remarkable books of the eighteenth century, and perhaps no other book written during the century has equaled it in influence. It inspired Beccaria in Italy and Bentham in England, and it has helped in so many ways to make history, that its importance to the student of history can hardly be overestimated. The style in which it is written is much more nearly Attic than Parisian. Montesquieu deals point by point with every subordinate phase of his subject. As if each were of primary importance, he makes his treatment of it a complete essay, while at the same time he keeps it within an allotted limit and subordinates it to the whole. The lack of ability to do this is the worst of the negative faults of the prose of the nineteenth century, and on this account Montesquieu would be worth serious study even if he were not a great thinker. Of the status of the book in literature, Professor Saintsbury writes: "It is an assemblage of the most fertile, original, and inspiriting views on legal and political subjects put in language of singular suggestiveness and vigor, illustrated by examples which are always apt and luminous, permeated by the spirit of temperate and tolerant desire for human improvement and happiness, and almost unique in its entire freedom at once from doctrinairism, from visionary enthusiasm, from egotism, and from an undue spirit of system."

Though Montesquieu is chiefly remembered by this great work, he was already famous when it appeared, as it was preceded by his "Persian Letters" (1721) and his "Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans."

1 He was born from a patrician family at the Château de la Brède, near Bordeaux, France, January 18th, 1689. He was educated carefully in literature and law; and, when his hereditary position made him president of the Bordeaux parliament, he was well fitted for the place. Knowing himself better fitted for literature, however, he withdrew from public life, and devoted himself to a life of study, relieved chiefly by travel. When he died, February 10th, 1755, his generation had recognized him as one of its greatest men, and posterity has sustained its judgment.

OF THE LIBERTIES AND PRIVILEGES OF EUROPEAN WOMEN

("Rica to Ibben at Smyrna." Dated "Paris 26th of the Moon 1713.")

WHE

HETHER it is better to deprive women of their liberty or to permit it them, is a great question among men: it appears to me that there are good reasons for and against this practice. If the Europeans urge that there is a want of generosity in rendering those persons miserable whom we love, our Asiatics answer that it is meanness in men to renounce the empire which nature has given them over women. If they are told that a great number of women, shut up, are troublesome, they reply that ten women in subjection are less troublesome than one who is refractory. But they object, in their turn, that the Europeans cannot be happy who are faithless to them, they reply that this fidelity, of which they boast so much, does not hinder that disgust which always follows the gratification of the passions; that our women are too much ours; that a possession so easily obtained leaves nothing to be wished or feared; that a little coquetry provokes desire, and prevents disgust. Perhaps a man wiser than myself would be puzzled to decide this question; for if the Asiatics do find out proper means to calm their uneasiness, the Europeans also do as well to have uneasiness. After all, say they, though we should be unhappy as husbands, we should always find means to recompense ourselves as lovers. For that a man might have reason to complain of the infidelity of his wife, it must be that there should be but three persons in the world; they will always be at even hands when there are four. Another question among the learned is, whether the law of nature subjects the women to the men. No, said a gallant philosophers to me the other day, nature never dictated such a law. The empire we have over them is real tyranny, which they only suffer us to assume, because they have more good-nature than we, and, in consequence, more humanity and reason. These advantages, which ought to have given them the superiority, had we acted reasonably, have made them lose it, because we have not the same advantages. But if it is true that the power we have over women is only tyrannical, it is no less so that they have over us a natural empire, that of beauty, which nothing can re

Our power extends not to all countries; but that of beauty is universal. Wherefore then do we hear of this privilege?

Is