medieval fetters which it had worn even in the days of Bossuet, and considered the development of events from a purely secular point of view, as the result of natural causes.  But his greatest work, over which he spent the greater part of his life, and on which his reputation must finally rest, was L’Esprit des Lois (published in 1748).  The discussion of this celebrated book falls outside the domain of literature, and belongs rather to the history of political thought.  It is enough to say that here all Montesquieu’s qualities—­his power of generalization, his freedom from prejudice, his rationalism, his love of liberty and hatred of fanaticism, his pointed, epigrammatic style—­appear in their most characteristic form.  Perhaps the chief fault of the book is that it is too brilliant.  When Madame du Deffand said that its title should have been De l’Esprit sur les Lois she put her finger on its weak spot.  Montesquieu’s generalizations are always bold, always original, always fine; unfortunately, they are too often unsound into the bargain.  The fluid elusive facts slip through his neat sentences like water in a sieve.  His treatment of the English constitution affords an illustration of this.  One of the first foreigners to recognize the importance and to study the nature of English institutions, Montesquieu nevertheless failed to give an accurate account of them.  He believed that he had found in them a signal instance of his favourite theory of the beneficial effects produced by the separation of the three powers of government—­the judicial, the legislative, and the executive; but he was wrong.  In England, as a matter of fact, the powers of the legislative and the executive were intertwined.  This particular error has had a curious history.  Montesquieu’s great reputation led to his view of the constitution of England being widely accepted as the true one; as such it was adopted by the American leaders after the War of Independence; and its influence is plainly visible in the present constitution of the United States.  Such is the strange power of good writing over the affairs of men!

At about the same time as the publication of the Lettres Persanes, there appeared upon the scene in Paris a young man whose reputation was eventually destined far to outshine that of Montesquieu himself.  This young man was Francois Arouet, known to the world as VOLTAIRE.  Curiously enough, however, the work upon which Voltaire’s reputation was originally built up has now sunk into almost complete oblivion.  It was as a poet, and particularly as a tragic poet, that he won his fame; and it was primarily as a poet that he continued to be known to his contemporaries during the first sixty years of his life (1694-1754).  But to-day his poetry—­the serious part of it, at least,—­is never read, and his tragedies—­except for an occasional revival—­are never acted.  As a dramatist Voltaire is negligible for the very reasons that made him so successful in his own day.