I was very impatient to see if Mr. Jaffrey's illusion would stand the test of daylight. It did. Elkanah Elkins Andrew Jackson Jaffrey was, so to speak, alive and kicking the next morning. On taking his seat at the breakfast-table, Mr. Jaffrey whispered to me that Andy had had a comfortable night.

"Silas!" said Mr. Sewell, sharply, "what are you whispering about?"

Mr. Sewell was in an ill humor; perhaps he was jealous because I had passed the evening in Mr. Jaffrey's room; but surely Mr. Sewell could not expect his boarders to go to bed at eight o'clock every night, as he did. From time to time during the meal Mr. Sewell regarded me unkindly out of the corner of his eye, and in helping me to the parsnips he poniarded them with quite a suggestive air. All this, however, did not prevent me from repairing to the door of Mr. Jaffrey's snuggery when night came.

"Well, Mr. Jaffrey, how's Andy this evening?"

"Got a tooth!" cried Mr. Jaffrey, vivaciously.

"No!"

"Yes, he has! Just through. Give the nurse a silver dollar. Standing reward for first tooth."

It was on the tip of my tongue to express surprise that an infant a day old should cut a tooth, when I suddenly recollected that Richard III. was born with teeth. Feeling myself to be on unfamiliar ground, I suppressed my criticism. It was well I did so, for in the next breath I was advised that half a year had elapsed since the previous evening.

"Andy's had a hard six months of it," said Mr. Jaffrey, with the well-known narrative air of fathers. "We've brought him up by hand. His grandfather, by the way, was brought up by the bottle—" and brought down by it, too, I added mentally, recalling Mr. Sewell's account of the old gentleman's tragic end.

Mr. Jaffrey then went on to give me a history of Andy's first six months, omitting no detail however insignificant or irrelevant. This history I would in turn inflict upon the reader, if I were only certain that he is one of those dreadful parents who, under the aegis of friendship, bore you at a street-corner with that remarkable thing which Freddy said the other day, and insist on singing to you, at an evening party, the Iliad of Tommy's woes.

But to inflict this enfantillage upon the unmarried reader would be an act of wanton cruelty. So I pass over that part of Andy's biography, and for the same reason make no record of the next four or five interviews I had with Mr. Jaffrey. It will be sufficient to state that Andy glided from extreme infancy to early youth with astonishing celerity—at the rate of one year per night, if I remember correctly; and—must I confess it?—before the week came to an end, this invisible hobgoblin of a boy was only little less of a reality to me than to Mr. Jaffrey.

At first I had lent myself to the old dreamer's whim with a keen perception of the humor of the thing; but by and by I found that I was talking and thinking of Miss Mehetabel's son as though he were a veritable personage. Mr. Jaffrey spoke of the child with such an air of conviction!—as if Andy were playing among his toys in the next room, or making mud-pies down in the yard. In these conversations, it should be observed, the child was never supposed to be present, except on that single occasion when Mr. Jaffrey leaned over the cradle. After one of our seances I would lie awake until the small hours, thinking of the boy, and then fall asleep only to have indigestible dreams about him. Through the day, and sometimes in the midst of complicated calculations, I would catch myself wondering what Andy was up to now! There was no shaking him off; he became an inseparable nightmare to me; and I felt that if I remained much longer at Bayley's Four-Corners I should turn into just such another bald-headed, mild-eyed visionary as Silas Jaffrey.

Then the tavern was a grewsome old shell any way, full of unaccountable noises after dark—rustlings of garments along unfrequented passages, and stealthy footfalls in unoccupied chambers overhead. I never knew of an old house without these mysterious noises. Next to my bedroom was a musty, dismantled apartment, in one corner of which, leaning against the wainscot, was a crippled mangle, with its iron crank tilted in the air like the elbow of the late Mr. Clem Jaffrey. Sometimes,

"In the dead vast and middle of the night,"

I used to hear sounds as if some one were turning that rusty crank on the sly. This occurred only on particularly cold nights, and I conceived the uncomfortable idea that it was the thin family ghosts, from the neglected graveyard in the cornfield, keeping themselves warm by running each other through the mangle. There was a haunted air about the whole place that made it easy for me to believe in the existence of a phantasm like Miss Mehetabel's son, who, after all, was less unearthly than Mr. Jaffrey himself, and seemed more properly an inhabitant of this globe than the toothless ogre who kept the inn, not to mention the silent Witch of Endor that cooked our meals for us over the bar-room fire.

In spite of the scowls and winks bestowed upon me by Mr. Sewell, who let slip no opportunity to testify his disapprobation of the intimacy, Mr. Jaffrey and I spent all our evenings together—those long autumnal evenings, through the length of which he talked about the boy, laying out his path in life and hedging the path with roses. He should be sent to the High School at Portsmouth, and then to college; he should be educated like a gentleman, Andy.

"When the old man dies," remarked Mr. Jaffrey one night, rubbing his hands gleefully, as if it were a great joke, "Andy will find that the old man has left him a pretty plum."

"What do you think of having Andy enter West Point, when he's old enough?" said Mr. Jaffrey on another occasion. "He needn't necessarily go into the army when he graduates; he can become a civil engineer."

This was a stroke of flattery so delicate and indirect that I could accept it without immodesty.

There had lately sprung up on the corner of Mr. Jaffrey's bureau a small tin house, Gothic in architecture and pink in color, with a slit in the roof, and the word BANK painted on one facade. Several times in the course of an evening Mr. Jaffrey would rise from his chair without interrupting the conversation, and gravely drop a nickel into the scuttle of the bank. It was pleasant to observe the solemnity of his countenance as he approached the edifice, and the air of triumph with which he resumed his seat by the fireplace. One night I missed the tin bank. It had disappeared, deposits and all, like a real bank. Evidently there had been a defalcation on rather a large scale. I strongly suspected that Mr. Sewell was at the bottom of it, but my suspicion was not shared by Mr. Jaffrey, who, remarking my glance at the bureau, became suddenly depressed.

"I'm afraid," he said, "that I have failed to instill into Andrew those principles of integrity which—which—" and the old gentleman quite broke down.

Andy was now eight or nine years old, and for some time past, if the truth must be told, had given Mr. Jaffrey no inconsiderable trouble; what with his impishness and his illnesses, the boy led the pair of us a lively dance. I shall not soon forget the anxiety of Mr. Jaffrey the night Andy had the scarlet-fever—an anxiety which so infected me that I actually returned to the tavern the following afternoon earlier than usual, dreading to hear that the little spectre was dead, and greatly relieved on meeting Mr. Jaffrey at the door-step with his face wreathed in smiles. When I spoke to him of Andy, I was made aware that I was inquiring into a case of scarlet-fever that had occurred the year before!

It was at this time, towards the end of my second week at Greenton, that I noticed what was probably not a new trait—Mr. Jaffrey's curious sensitiveness to atmospherical changes. He was as sensitive as a barometer. The approach of a storm sent his mercury down instantly. When the weather was fair he was hopeful and sunny, and Andy's prospects were brilliant. When the weather was overcast and threatening he grew restless and despondent, and was afraid that the boy was not going to turn out well.

On the Saturday previous to my departure, which had been fixed for Monday, it rained heavily all the afternoon, and that night Mr. Jaffrey was in an unusually excitable and unhappy frame of mind. His mercury was very low indeed.

"That boy is going to the dogs just as fast as he can go," said Mr. Jaffrey, with a woeful face. "I can't do anything with him."

"He'll come out all right, Mr. Jaffrey. Boys will be boys. I would not give a snap for a lad without animal spirits."

"But animal spirits," said Mr. Jaffrey sententiously, "shouldn't saw off the legs of the piano in Tobias's best parlor. I don't know what Tobias will say when he finds it out."

"What! has Andy sawed off the legs of the old spinet?" I returned, laughing.

"Worse than that."

"Played upon it, then!"

"No, sir. He has lied to me!"

"I can't believe that of Andy."

"Lied to me, sir," repeated Mr. Jaffrey, severely. "He pledged me his word of honor that he would give over his climbing. The way that boy climbs sends a chill down my spine. This morning, notwithstanding his solemn promise, he shinned up the lightning-rod attached to the extension, and sat astride the ridge-pole. I saw him, and he denied it! When a boy you have caressed and indulged and lavished pocket-money on lies to you and will climb, then there's nothing more to be said. He's a lost child."

"You take too dark a view of it, Mr. Jaffrey. Training and education are bound to tell in the end, and he has been well brought up."

"But I didn't bring him up on a lightning-rod, did I? If he is ever going to know how to behave, he ought to know now. To-morrow he will be eleven years old."

The reflection came to me that if Andy had not been brought up by the rod, he had certainly been brought up by the lightning. He was eleven years old in two weeks!

I essayed, with that perspicacious wisdom which seems to be the peculiar property of bachelors and elderly maiden ladies, to tranquillize Mr. Jaffrey's mind, and to give him some practical hints on the management of youth.

"Spank him," I suggested at last.

"I will!" said the old gentleman.

"And you'd better do it at once!" I added, as it flashed upon me that in six months Andy would be a hundred and forty-three years old!—an age at which parental discipline would have to be relaxed.

The next morning, Sunday, the rain came down as if determined to drive the quicksilver entirely out of my poor friend. Mr. Jaffrey sat bolt upright at the breakfast-table, looking as woe-begone as a bust of Dante, and retired to his chamber the moment the meal was finished. As the day advanced, the wind veered round to the northeast, and settled itself down to work. It was not pleasant to think, and I tried not to think, what Mr. Jaffrey's condition would be if the weather did not mend its manners by noon; but so far from clearing off at noon, the storm increased in violence, and as night set in, the wind whistled in a spiteful falsetto key, and the rain lashed the old tavern as if it were a balky horse that refused to move on. The windows rattled in the worm-eaten frames, and the doors of remote rooms, where nobody ever went, slammed to in the maddest way. Now and then the tornado, sweeping down the side of Mount Agamenticus, bowled across the open country, and struck the ancient hostelry point-blank.

Mr. Jaffrey did not appear at supper. I knew that he was expecting me to come to his room as usual, and I turned over in my mind a dozen plans to evade seeing him that night. The landlord sat at the opposite side of the chimney-place, with his eye upon me. I fancy he was aware of the effect of this storm on his other boarder; for at intervals, as the wind hurled itself against the exposed gable, threatening to burst in the windows, Mr. Sewell tipped me an atrocious wink, and displayed his gums in a way he had not done since the morning after my arrival at Greenton. I wondered if he suspected anything about Andy. There had been odd times during the past week when I felt convinced that the existence of Miss Mehetabel's son was no secret to Mr. Sewell.

In deference to the gale, the landlord sat up half an hour later than was his custom. At half-past eight he went to bed, remarking that he thought the old pile would stand till morning.

He had been absent only a few minutes when I heard a rustling at the door. I looked up, and beheld Mr. Jaffrey standing on the threshold, with his dress in disorder, his scant hair flying, and the wildest expression on his face.

"He's gone!" cried Mr. Jaffrey.

"Who? Sewell? Yes, he just went to bed."

"No, not Tobias—the boy!"

"What, run away?"

"No—he is dead! He has fallen from a step-ladder in the red chamber and broken his neck!"

Mr. Jaffrey threw up his hands with a gesture of despair, and disappeared. I followed him through the hall, saw him go into his own apartment, and heard the bolt of the door drawn to. Then I returned to the bar-room, and sat for an hour or two in the ruddy glow of the fire, brooding over the strange experience of the last fortnight.

On my way to bed I paused at Mr. Jaffrey's door, and in a lull of the storm, the measured respiration within told me that the old gentleman was sleeping peacefully.

Slumber was coy with me that night. I lay listening to the soughing of the wind, and thinking of Mr. Jaffrey's illusion. It had amused me at first with its grotesqueness; but now the poor little phantom was dead, I was conscious that there had been something pathetic in it all along. Shortly after midnight the wind sunk down, coming and going fainter and fainter, floating around the eaves of the tavern with an undulating, murmurous sound, as if it were turning itself into soft wings to bear away the spirit of a little child.

Perhaps nothing that happened during my stay at Bayley's Four-Corners took me so completely by surprise as Mr. Jaffrey's radiant countenance the next morning. The morning itself was not fresher or sunnier. His round face literally shone with geniality and happiness. His eyes twinkled like diamonds, and the magnetic light of his hair was turned on full. He came into my room while I was packing my valise. He chirped, and prattled, and caroled, and was sorry I was going away—but never a word about Andy. However, the boy had probably been dead several years then!

The open wagon that was to carry me to the station stood at the door; Mr. Sewell was placing my case of instruments under the seat, and Mr. Jaffrey had gone up to his room to get me a certain newspaper containing an account of a remarkable shipwreck on the Auckland Islands. I took the opportunity to thank Mr. Sewell for his courtesies to me, and to express my regret at leaving him and Mr. Jaffrey.

"I have become very much attached to Mr. Jaffrey," I said; "he is a most interesting person; but that hypothetical boy of his, that son of Miss Mehetabel's—"

"Yes, I know!" interrupted Mr. Sewell, testily. "Fell off a step-ladder and broke his dratted neck. Eleven year old, wasn't he? Always does, jest at that point. Next week Silas will begin the whole thing over again, if he can get anybody to listen to him."

"I see. Our amiable friend is a little queer on that subject."

Mr. Sewell glanced cautiously over his shoulder, and tapping himself significantly on the forehead, said in a low voice,—

"Room To Let—Unfurnished!"

The foregoing selections are copyrighted, and are reprinted by permission of the author, and Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers.



ALEARDO ALEARDI

(1812-1878)

The Italian patriot and poet, Aleardo Aleardi, was born in the village of San Giorgio, near Verona, on November 4th, 1812. He passed his boyhood on his father's farm, amid the grand scenery of the valley of the Adige, which deeply impressed itself on his youthful imagination and left its traces in all his verse. He went to school at Verona, where for his dullness he was nick-named the "mole," and afterwards he passed on to the University of Padua to study law, apparently to please his father, for in the charming autobiography prefixed to his collected poems he quotes his father as saying:—"My son, be not enamored of this coquette, Poesy; for with all her airs of a great lady, she will play thee some trick of a faithless grisette. Choose a good companion, as one might say, for instance the law: and thou wilt found a family; wilt partake of God's bounties; wilt be content in life, and die quietly and happily." In addition to satisfying his father, the young poet also wrote at Padua his first political poems. And this brought him into slight conflict with the authorities. He practiced law for a short time at Verona, and wrote his first long poem, 'Arnaldo,' published in 1842, which was very favorably received. When six years later the new Venetian republic came into being, Aleardi was sent to represent its interests at Paris. The speedy overthrow of the new State brought the young ambassador home again, and for the next ten years he worked for Italian unity and freedom. He was twice imprisoned, at Mantua in 1852, and again in 1859 at Verona, where he died April 17th, 1878.

Like most of the Italian poets of this century, Aleardi found his chief inspiration in the exciting events that marked the struggle of Italy for independence, and his best work antedated the peace of Villafranca. His first serious effort was 'Le Prime Storie' (The Primal Histories), written in 1845. In this he traces the story of the human race from the creation through the Scriptural, classical, and feudal periods down to the present century, and closes with foreshadowings of a peaceful and happy future. It is picturesque, full of lofty imagery and brilliant descriptive passages.

'Una Ora della mia Giovinezza' (An Hour of My Youth: 1858) recounts many of his youthful trials and disappointments as a patriot. Like the 'Primal Histories,' this poem is largely contemplative and philosophical, and shines by the same splendid diction and luxurious imagery; but it is less wide-reaching in its interests and more specific in its appeal to his own countrymen. And from this time onward the patriotic qualities in Aleardi's poetry predominate, and his themes become more and more exclusively Italian. The 'Monte Circello' sings the glories and events of the Italian land and history, and successfully presents many facts of science in poetic form, while the singer passionately laments the present condition of Italy. In 'Le Citta Italiane Marinore e Commercianti' (The Marine and Commercial Cities of Italy) the story of the rise, flourishing, and fall of Venice, Florence, Pisa, and Genoa is recounted. His other noteworthy poems are 'Rafaello e la Fornarina,' 'Le Tre Fiume' (The Three Rivers), 'Le Tre Fanciulle' (The Three Maidens: 1858), 'I Sette Soldati' (The Seven Soldiers: 1859), and 'Canto Politico' (Political Songs: 1862).

A slender volume of five hundred pages contains all that Aleardi has written. Yet he is one of the chief minor Italian poets of this century, because of his loftiness of purpose and felicity of expression, his tenderness of feeling, and his deep sympathies with his struggling country.

"He has," observes Howells in his 'Modern Italian Poets,' "in greater degree than any other Italian poet of this, or perhaps of any age, those merits which our English taste of this time demands,—quickness of feeling and brilliancy of expression. He lacks simplicity of idea, and his style is an opal which takes all lights and hues, rather than the crystal which lets the daylight colorlessly through. He is distinguished no less by the themes he selects than by the expression he gives them. In his poetry there is passion, but his subjects are usually those to which love is accessory rather than essential; and he cares better to sing of universal and national destinies as they concern individuals, than the raptures and anguishes of youthful individuals as they concern mankind." He was original in his way; his attitude toward both the classic and the romantic schools is shown in the following passage from his autobiography, which at the same time brings out his patriotism. He says:—

"It seemed to me strange, on the one hand, that people who, in their serious moments and in the recesses of their hearts, invoked Christ, should in the recesses of their minds, in the deep excitement of poetry, persist in invoking Apollo and Pallas Minerva. It seemed to me strange, on the other hand, that people born in Italy, with this sun, with these nights, with so many glories, so many griefs, so many hopes at home, should have the mania of singing the mists of Scandinavia, and the Sabbaths of witches, and should go mad for a gloomy and dead feudalism, which had come from the North, the highway of our misfortunes. It seemed to me, moreover, that every Art of Poetry was marvelously useless, and that certain rules were mummies embalmed by the hand of pedants. In fine, it seemed to me that there were two kinds of Art: the one, serene with an Olympic serenity, the Art of all ages that belongs to no country; the other, more impassioned, that has its roots in one's native soil.... The first that of Homer, of Phidias, of Virgil, of Tasso; the other that of the Prophets, of Dante, of Shakespeare, of Byron. And I have tried to cling to this last, because I was pleased to see how these great men take the clay of their own land and their own time, and model from it a living statue, which resembles their contemporaries."

In another interesting passage he explains that his old drawing-master had in vain pleaded with the father to make his son a painter, and he continues:—

"Not being allowed to use the pencil, I have used the pen. And precisely on this account my pen resembles too much a pencil; precisely on this account I am often too much of a naturalist, and am too fond of losing myself in minute details. I am as one who in walking goes leisurely along, and stops every minute to observe the dash of light that breaks through the trees of the woods, the insect that alights on his hand, the leaf that falls on his head, a cloud, a wave, a streak of smoke; in fine, the thousand accidents that make creation so rich, so various, so poetical, and beyond which we evermore catch glimpses of that grand mysterious something, eternal, immense, benignant, and never inhuman nor cruel, as some would have us believe, which is called God."

The selections are from Howells's 'Modern Italian Poets,' copyright 1887, by Harper and Brothers.

COWARDS

/* In the deep circle of Siddim hast thou seen, Under the shining skies of Palestine, The sinister glitter of the Lake of Asphalt? Those coasts, strewn thick with ashes of damnation, Forever foe to every living thing, Where rings the cry of the lost wandering bird That on the shore of the perfidious sea Athirsting dies,—that watery sepulchre Of the five cities of iniquity, Where even the tempest, when its clouds hang low, Passes in silence, and the lightning dies,— If thou hast seen them, bitterly hath been Thy heart wrung with the misery and despair Of that dread vision! Yet there is on earth A woe more desperate and miserable,— A spectacle wherein the wrath of God Avenges Him more terribly. It is A vain, weak people of faint-heart old men, That, for three hundred years of dull repose, Has lain perpetual dreamer, folded in The ragged purple of its ancestors, Stretching its limbs wide in its country's sun, To warm them; drinking the soft airs of autumn Forgetful, on the fields where its forefathers Like lions fought! From overflowing hands, Strew we with hellebore and poppies thick The way.

From 'The Primal Histories.'

THE HARVESTERS

What time in summer, sad with so much light, The sun beats ceaselessly upon the fields; The harvesters, as famine urges them, Draw hitherward in thousands, and they wear The look of those that dolorously go In exile, and already their brown eyes Are heavy with the poison of the air. Here never note of amorous bird consoles Their drooping hearts; here never the gay songs Of their Abruzzi sound to gladden these Pathetic hands. But taciturn they toil, Reaping the harvests for their unknowrn lords; And when the weary labor is performed, Taciturn they retire; and not till then Their bagpipes crown the joys of the return, Swelling the heart with their familiar strain. Alas! not all return, for there is one That dying in the furrow sits, and seeks With his last look some faithful kinsman out, To give his life's wage, that he carry it Unto his trembling mother, with the last Words of her son that comes no more. And dying, Deserted and alone, far off he hears His comrades going, with their pipes in time, Joyfully measuring their homeward steps. And when in after years an orphan comes To reap the harvest here, and feels his blade Go quivering through the swaths of falling grain, He weeps and thinks—haply these heavy stalks Ripened on his unburied father's bones.

From 'Monte Circello.'

THE DEATH OF THE YEAR

Ere yet upon the unhappy Arctic lands, In dying autumn, Erebus descends With the night's thousand hours, along the verge Of the horizon, like a fugitive, Through the long days wanders the weary sun; And when at last under the wave is quenched The last gleam of its golden countenance, Interminable twilight land and sea Discolors, and the north wind covers deep All things in snow, as in their sepulchres The dead are buried. In the distances The shock of warring Cyclades of ice Makes music as of wild and strange lament; And up in heaven now tardily are lit The solitary polar star and seven Lamps of the bear. And now the warlike race Of swans gather their hosts upon the breast Of some far gulf, and, bidding their farewell To the white cliffs and slender junipers, And sea-weed bridal-beds, intone the song Of parting, and a sad metallic clang Send through the mists. Upon their southward way They greet the beryl-tinted icebergs; greet Flamy volcanoes and the seething founts Of geysers, and the melancholy yellow Of the Icelandic fields; and, wearying Their lily wings amid the boreal lights, Journey away unto the joyous shores Of morning.

From 'An Hour of My Youth.'



JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT

(1717-1783)



Jean Le Rond D'Alembert, one of the most noted of the "Encyclopedists," a mathematician of the first order, and an eminent man of letters, was born at Paris in 1717. The unacknowleged son of the Chevalier Destouches and of Mme. de Tencin, he had been exposed on the steps of the chapel St. Jean-le-Rond, near Notre-Dame. He was named after the place where he was found; the surname of D'Alembert being added by himself in later years. He was given into the care of the wife of a glazier, who brought him up tenderly and whom he never ceased to venerate as his true mother. His anonymous father, however, partly supported him by an annual income of twelve hundred francs. He was educated at the college Mazarin, and surprised his Jansenist teachers by his brilliance and precocity. They believed him to be a second Pascal; and, doubtless to complete the analogy, drew his attention away from his theological studies to geometry. But they calculated without their host; for the young student suddenly found out his genius, and mathematics and the exact sciences henceforth became his absorbing interests. He studied successively law and medicine, but finding no satisfaction in either of these professions, with the true instincts of the scholar he chose poverty with liberty to pursue the studies he loved. He astonished the scientific world by his first published works, 'Memoir on the Integral Calculus' (1739) and 'On the Refraction of Solid Bodies' (1741); and while not yet twenty-four years old, the brilliant young mathematician was made a member of the French Academy of Sciences. In 1754 he entered the Academie Francaise, and eighteen years later became its perpetual secretary.

D'Alembert wrote many and important works on physics and mathematics. One of these, 'Memoir on the General Cause of Winds,' carried away a prize from the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, in 1746, and its dedication to Frederick II. of Prussia won him the friendship of that monarch. But his claims to a place in French literature, leaving aside his eulogies on members of the French Academy deceased between 1700 and 1772, are based chiefly on his writings in connection with the 'Encyclopedie.' Associated with Diderot in this vast enterprise, he was at first, because of his eminent position in the scientific world, its director and official head. He contributed a large number of scientific and philosophic articles, and took entire charge of the revising of the mathematical division. His most noteworthy contribution, however, is the 'Preliminary Discourse' prefixed as a general introduction and explanation of the work. In this he traced with wonderful clearness and logical precision the successive steps of the human mind in its search after knowledge, and basing his conclusion on the historical evolution of the race, he sketched in broad outlines the development of the sciences and arts. In 1758 he withdrew from the active direction of the 'Encyclopedie,' that he might free himself from the annoyance of governmental interference, to which the work was constantly subjected because of the skeptical tendencies it evinced. But he continued to contribute mathematical articles, with a few on other topics. One of these, on 'Geneva,' involved him in his celebrated dispute with Rousseau and other radicals in regard to Calvinism and the suppression of theatrical performances in the stronghold of Swiss orthodoxy.

His fame was spreading over Europe. Frederick the Great of Prussia repeatedly offered him the presidency of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin. But he refused, as he also declined the magnificent offer of Catherine of Russia to become tutor to her son, at a yearly salary of a hundred thousand francs. Pope Benedict XIV. honored him by recommending him to the membership of the Institute of Bologne; and the high esteem in which he was held in England is shown by the legacy of L200 left him by David Hume.

All these honors and distinctions did not affect the simplicity of his life, for during thirty years he continued to reside in the poor and incommodious quarters of his foster-mother, whom he partly supported out of his small income. Ill health at last drove him to seek better accommodations. He had formed a romantic attachment for Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse, and lived with her in the same house for years unscandaled. Her death in 1776 plunged him into profound grief. He died nine years later, on the 9th of October, 1783.

His manner was plain and at times almost rude; he had great independence of character, but also much simplicity and benevolence. With the other French deists, D'Alembert has been attacked for his religious opinions, but with injustice. He was prudent in the public expression of them, as the time necessitated; but he makes the freest statement of them in his correspondence with Voltaire. His literary and philosopic works were edited by Bassange (Paris, 1891). Condorcet, in his 'Eulogy,' gives the best account of his life and writings.

MONTESQUIEU

From the Eulogy published in the 'Encyclopedie'

The interest which good citizens are pleased to take in the 'Encyclopedie,' and the great number of men of letters who consecrate their labors to it, authorize us to regard this work as the most proper monument to preserve the grateful sentiments of our country, and that respect which is due to the memory of those celebrated men who have done it honor. Persuaded, however, that M. de Montesquieu had a title to expect other panegyrics, and that the public grief deserved to be described by more eloquent pens, we should have paid his great memory the homage of silence, had not gratitude compelled us to speak. A benefactor to mankind by his writings, he was not less a benefactor to this work, and at least we may place a few lines at the base of his statue, as it were.

Charles de Secondat, baron of La Brede and of Montesquieu, late life-President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, member of the French Academy of Sciences, of the Royal Academy and Belles-Lettres of Prussia, and of the Royal Society of London, was born at the castle of La Brede, near Bordeaux, the 18th of January, 1689, of a noble family of Guyenne. His great-great-grandfather, John de Secondat, steward of the household to Henry the Second, King of Navarre, and afterward to Jane, daughter of that king, who married Antony of Bourbon, purchased the estate of Montesquieu for the sum of ten thousand livres, which this princess gave him by an authentic deed, as a reward for his probity and services.

Henry the Third, King of Navarre, afterward Henry the Fourth, King of France, erected the lands of Montesquieu into a barony, in favor of Jacob de Secondat, son of John, first a gentleman in ordinary of the bedchamber to this prince, and afterward colonel of the regiment of Chatillon. John Gaston de Secondat, his second son, having married a daughter of the first president of the Parliament of Bordeaux, purchased the office of perpetual president in this society. He had several children, one of whom entered the service, distinguished himself, and quitted it very early in life. This was the father of Charles de Secondat, author of the 'Spirit of Laws.' These particulars may seem superfluous in the eulogy of a philosopher who stands so little in need of ancestors; but at least we may adorn their memory with that lustre which his name reflects upon it.

The early promise of his genius was fulfilled in Charles de Secondat. He discovered very soon what he desired to be, and his father cultivated this rising genius, the object of his hope and of his tenderness. At the age of twenty, young Montesquieu had already prepared materials for the 'Spirit of Laws,' by a well-digested extract from the immense body of the civil law; as Newton had laid in early youth the foundation of his immortal works. The study of jurisprudence, however, though less dry to M. de Montesquieu than to most who attempt it, because he studied it as a philosopher, did not content him. He inquired deeply into the subjects which pertain to religion, and considered them with that wisdom, decency, and equity, which characterize his work.

A brother of his father, perpetual president of the Parliament of Bordeaux, an able judge and virtuous citizen, the oracle of his own society and of his province, having lost an only son, left his fortune and his office to M. de Montesquieu.

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, like a respectful subject and courageous magistrate he brought the cry of the wretched to the ears of the sovereign—a cry which, being heard, obtained justice. Unfortunately, this success was momentary. Scarce was the popular voice silenced before the suppressed tax was replaced by another; but the good citizen had done his duty.

He was received the 3d of April, 1716, into the new academy of Bordeaux. A taste for music and entertainment had at first assembled its members. M. de Montesquieu believed that the talents of his friends might be better employed in physical subjects. He was persuaded that nature, worthy of being beheld everywhere, could find everywhere eyes worthy to behold her; while it was impossible to gather together, at a distance from the metropolis, distinguished writers on works of taste. He looked upon our provincial societies for belles-lettres as a shadow of literature which obscures the reality. The Duke de la Force, by a prize which he founded at Bordeaux, seconded these rational views. It was decided that a good physical experiment would be better than a weak discourse or a bad poem; and Bordeaux got an Academy of Sciences.

M. de Montesquieu, careless of reputation, wrote little. It was not till 1721, that is to say, at thirty-two years of age, that he published the 'Persian Letters.' The description of Oriental manners, real or supposed, is the least important thing in these letters. It serves merely as a pretense for a delicate satire upon our own customs and for the concealment of a serious intention. In this moving picture, Usbec chiefly exposes, with as much ease as energy, whatever among us most struck his penetrating eyes: our way of treating the silliest things seriously, and of laughing at the most important; our way of talking which is at once so blustering and so frivolous; our impatience even in the midst of pleasure itself; our prejudices and our actions that perpetually contradict our understandings; our great love of glory and respect for the idol of court favor, our little real pride; our courtiers so mean and vain; our exterior politeness to, and our real contempt of strangers; our fantastical tastes, than which there is nothing lower but the eagerness of all Europe to adopt them; our barbarous disdain for the two most respectable occupations 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 he opposes, in the apologue of the Troglodytes, the description of a virtuous people, become wise by misfortunes—a piece worthy of the portico. In another place, he represents philosophy, long silenced, suddenly reappearing, regaining rapidly the time which she had lost; penetrating even among the Russians at the voice of a genius which invites her; while among other people of Europe, superstition, like a thick atmosphere, prevents the all-surrounding light from reaching them. Finally, by his review of ancient and modern government, he presents us with the bud of those bright ideas since fully developed in his great work.

These different subjects, no longer novel, as when the 'Persian Letters' first appeared, will forever remain original—a merit the more real that it proceeds alone from the genius of the writer; for Usbec acquired, during his abode in France, so perfect a knowledge of our morals, and so strong a tincture of our manners, that his style makes us forget his country. This small solecism was perhaps not unintentional. While exposing our follies and vices, he meant, no doubt, to do justice to our merits. Avoiding the insipidity of a direct panegyric, he has more delicately praised us by assuming our own air in professed satire.

Notwithstanding the success of his work, M. de Montesquieu did not acknowledge it. Perhaps he wished to escape criticism. Perhaps he wished to avoid a contrast of the frivolity of the 'Persian Letters' with the gravity of his office; a sort of reproach which critics never fail to make, because it requires no sort of effort. But his secret was discovered, and the public suggested his name for the Academy. The event justified M. de Montesquieu's silence. Usbec expresses himself freely, not concerning the fundamentals of Christianity, but about matters which people affect to confound with Christianity itself: about the spirit of persecution which has animated so many Christians; about the temporal usurpation of ecclesiastical power; about the excessive multiplication of monasteries, which deprive the State of subjects without giving worshipers to God; about some opinions which would fain be established as principles; about our religious disputes, always violent and often fatal. If he appears anywhere to touch upon questions more vital to Christianity itself, his reflections are in fact favorable to revelation, because he shows how little human reason, left to itself, knows.

Among the genuine letters of M. de Montesquieu the foreign printer had inserted some by another hand. Before the author was condemned, these should have been thrown out. Regardless of these considerations, hatred masquerading as zeal, and zeal without understanding, rose and united themselves against the 'Persian Letters.' Informers, a species of men dangerous and base, alarmed the piety of the ministry. M. de Montesquieu, urged by his friends, supported by the public voice, having offered himself for the vacant place of M. de Sacy in the French Academy, the minister wrote "The Forty" that his Majesty would never accept the election of the author of the "Persian Letters" that he had not, indeed, read the book, but that persons in whom he placed confidence had informed him of its poisonous tendency. M. de Montesquieu saw what a blow such an accusation might prove to his person, his family, and his tranquillity. He neither sought literary honors nor affected to disdain them when they came in his way, nor did he regard the lack of them as a misfortune: but a perpetual exclusion, and the motives of that exclusion, appeared to him to be an injury. He saw the minister, and explained that though he did not acknowledge the 'Persian Letters,' he would not disown a work for which he had no reason to blush; and that he ought to be judged upon its contents, and not upon mere hearsay. At last the minister read the book, loved the author, and learned wisdom as to his advisers. The French Academy obtained one of its greatest ornaments, and France had the happiness to keep a subject whom superstition or calumny had nearly deprived her of; for M. de Montesquieu had declared to the government that, after the affront they proposed, he would go among foreigners in quest of that safety, that repose, and perhaps those rewards which he might reasonably have expected in his own country. The nation would really have deplored his loss, while yet the disgrace of it must have fallen upon her.

M. de Montesquieu was received the 24th of January, 1728. His oration is one of the best ever pronounced here. Among many admirable passages which shine out in its pages is the deep-thinking writer's characterization of Cardinal Richelieu, "who taught France the secret of its strength, and Spain that of its weakness; who freed Germany from her chains and gave her new ones."

The new Academician was the worthier of this title, that he had renounced all other employments to give himself entirely up to his genius and his taste. However important was his place, he perceived that a different work must employ his talents; that the citizen is accountable to his country and to mankind for all the good he may do; and that he could be more useful by his writings than by settling obscure legal disputes. He was no longer a magistrate, but only a man of letters.

But that his works should serve other nations, it was necessary that he should travel, his aim being to examine the natural and moral world, to study the laws and constitution of every country; to visit scholars, writers, artists, and everywhere to seek for those rare men whose conversation sometimes supplies the place of years of observation. M. de Montesquieu might have said, like Democritus, "I have forgot nothing to instruct myself; I have quitted my country and traveled over the universe, the better to know truth; I have seen all the illustrious personages of my time." But there was this difference between the French Democritus and him of Abdera, that the first traveled to instruct men, and the second to laugh at them.

He went first 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 checked the advance of Louis XIV. and humbled the Ottoman pride, lived without pomp, loving and cultivating letters in a court where they are little honored, and showing his masters how to protect them.

Leaving Vienna, the traveler visited Hungary, an opulent and fertile country, inhabited by a haughty and generous nation, the scourge of its tyrants and the support of its sovereigns. As few persons know this country well, he has written with care this part of his travels.

From Germany he went to Italy. At Venice he met the famous Mr. Law, of whose former grandeur nothing remained but projects fortunately destined to die away unorganized, and a diamond which he pawned to play at games of hazard. One day the conversation turned on the famous system which Law had invented; the source of so many calamities, so many colossal fortunes, and so remarkable a corruption in our morals. As the Parliament of Paris had made some resistance to the Scotch minister on this occasion, M. de Montesquieu asked him why he had never tried to overcome this resistance by a method almost always infallible in England, by the grand mover of human actions—in a word, by money. "These are not," answered Law, "geniuses so ardent and so generous as my countrymen; but they are much more incorruptible." It is certainly true that a society which is free for a limited time ought to resist corruption more than one which is always free: the first, when it sells its liberty, loses it; the second, so to speak, only lends it, and exercises it even when it is thus parting with it. Thus the circumstances and nature of government give rise to the vices and virtues of nations.

Another person, no less famous, whom M. de Montesquieu saw still oftener at Venice, was Count de Bonneval. This man, so well known for his adventures, which were not yet at an end, delighted to converse with so good a judge and so excellent a hearer, often related to him the military actions in which he had been engaged, and the remarkable circumstances of his life, and drew the characters of generals and ministers whom he had known.

He went from Venice to Rome. In this ancient capital of the world he studied the works of Raphael, of Titian, and of Michael Angelo. Accustomed to study nature, he knew her when she was translated, as a faithful portrait appeals to all who are familiar with the original.

After having traveled over Italy, M. de Montesquieu came to Switzerland and studied those vast countries which are watered by the Rhine. There was the less for him to see in Germany that Frederick did not yet reign. In the United Provinces he beheld an admirable monument of what human industry animated by a love of liberty can do. In England he stayed three years. Welcomed by the greatest men, he had nothing to regret save that he had not made his journey sooner. Newton and Locke were dead. But he had often the honor of paying his respects to their patroness, the celebrated Queen of England, who cultivated philosophy upon a throne, and who properly esteemed and valued M. de Montesquieu. Nor was he less well received by the nation. At London he formed intimate friendships with the great thinkers. With them he studied the nature of the government, attaining profound knowledge of it.

As he had set out neither as an enthusiast nor a cynic, he brought back neither a disdain for foreigners nor a contempt for his own country. It was the result of his observations that Germany was made to travel in, Italy to sojourn in, England to think in, and France to live in.

After returning to his own country, M. de Montesquieu retired for two years to his estate of La Brede, enjoying that solitude which a life in the tumult and hurry of the world but makes the more agreeable. He lived with himself, after having so long lived with others; and finished his work 'On the Cause of the Grandeur and Decline of the Romans,' which appeared in 1734.

Empires, like men, must increase, decay, and be extinguished. But this necessary revolution may have hidden causes which the veil of time conceals from us.

Nothing in this respect more resembles modern history than ancient history. That of the Romans must, however, be excepted. It presents us with a rational policy, a connected system of aggrandizement, which will not permit us to attribute the great fortune of this people to obscure and inferior sources. The causes of the Roman grandeur may then be found in history, and it is the business of the philosopher to discover them. Besides, there are no systems in this study, as in that of physics, which are easily overthrown, because one new and unforeseen experiment can upset them in an instant. On the contrary, when we carefully collect the facts, if we do not always gather together all the desired materials, we may at least hope one day to obtain more. A great historian combines in the most perfect manner these defective materials. His merit is like that of an architect, who, from a few remains, traces the plan of an ancient edifice; supplying, by genius and happy conjectures, what was wanting in fact.

It is from this point of view that we ought to consider the work of M. de Montesquieu. He finds the causes of the grandeur of the Romans in that love of liberty, of labor, and of country, which was instilled into them during their infancy; in those intestine divisions which gave an activity to their genius, and which ceased immediately upon the appearance of an enemy; in that constancy after misfortunes, which never despaired of the republic; in that principle they adhered to of never making peace but after victories; in the honor of a triumph, which was a subject of emulation among the generals; in that protection which they granted to those peoples who rebelled against their kings; in the excellent policy of permitting the conquered to preserve their religion and customs; and the equally excellent determination never to have two enemies upon their hands at once, but to bear everything from the one till they had destroyed the other. He finds the causes of their declension in the aggrandizement of the State itself: in those distant wars, which, obliging the citizens to be too long absent, made them insensibly lose their republican spirit; in the too easily granted privilege of being citizens of Rome, which made the Roman people at last become a sort of many-headed monster; in the corruption introduced by the luxury of Asia; in the proscriptions of Sylla, which debased the genius of the nation, and prepared it for slavery; in the necessity of having a master while their liberty was become burdensome to them; in the necessity of changing their maxims when they changed their government; in that series of monsters who reigned, almost without interruption, from Tiberius to Nerva, and from Commodus to Constantine; lastly, in the translation and division of the empire, which perished first in the West by the power of barbarians, and after having languished in the East, under weak or cruel emperors, insensibly died away, like those rivers which disappear in the sands.

In a very small volume M. de Montesquieu explained and unfolded his picture. Avoiding detail, and seizing only essentials, he has included in a very small space a vast number of objects distinctly perceived, and rapidly presented, without fatiguing the reader. While he points out much, he leaves us still more to reflect upon; and he might have entitled his book, 'A Roman History for the Use of Statesmen and Philosophers.'

Whatever reputation M. de Montesquieu had thus far acquired, he had but cleared the way for a far grander undertaking—for that which ought to immortalize his name, and commend it to the admiration of future ages. He had meditated for twenty years upon its execution; or, to speak more exactly, his whole life had been a perpetual meditation upon it. He had made himself in some sort a stranger in his own country, the better to understand it. He had studied profoundly the different peoples of Europe. The famous island, which so glories in her laws, and which makes so bad a use of them, proved to him what Crete had been to Lycurgus—a school where he learned much without approving everything. Thus he attained by degrees to the noblest title a wise man can deserve, that of legislator of nations.

If he was animated by the importance of his subject, he was at the same time terrified by its extent. He abandoned it, and returned to it again and again. More than once, as he himself owns, he felt his paternal hands fail him. At last, encouraged by his friends, he resolved to publish the 'Spirit of Laws.'

In this important work M. de Montesquieu, without insisting, like his predecessors, upon metaphysical discussions, without confining himself, like them, to consider certain people in certain particular relations or circumstances, takes a view of the actual inhabitants of the world in all their conceivable relations to each other. Most other writers in this way are either simple moralists, or simple lawyers, or even sometimes simple theologists. As for him, a citizen of all nations, he cares less what duty requires of us than what means may constrain us to do it; about the metaphysical perfection of laws, than about what man is capable of; about laws which have been made, than about those which ought to have been made; about the laws of a particular people, than about those of all peoples. Thus, when comparing himself to those who have run before him in this noble and grand career, he might say, with Correggio, when he had seen the works of his rivals, "And I, too, am a Painter."

Filled with his subject, the author of the 'Spirit of Laws' comprehends so many materials, and treats them with such brevity and depth, that assiduous reading alone discloses its merit. This study will make that pretended want of method, of which some readers have accused M. de Montesquieu, disappear. Real want of order should be distinguished from what is apparent only. Real disorder confuses the analogy and connection of ideas; or sets up conclusions as principles, so that the reader, after innumerable windings, finds himself at the point whence he set out. Apparent disorder is when the author, putting his ideas in their true place, leaves it to the readers to supply intermediate ones. M. de Montesquieu's book is designed for men who think, for men capable of supplying voluntary and reasonable omissions.

The order perceivable in the grand divisions of the 'Spirit of Laws' pervades the smaller details also. By his method of arrangement we easily perceive the influence of the different parts upon each other; as, in a system of human knowledge well understood, we may perceive the mutual relation of sciences and arts. There must always remain something arbitrary in every comprehensive scheme, and all that can be required of an author is, that he follow strictly his own system.

For an allowable obscurity the same defense exists. What may be obscure to the ignorant is not so for those whom the author had in mind. Besides, voluntary obscurity is not properly obscurity. Obliged to present truths of great importance, the direct avowal of which might have shocked without doing good, M. de Montesquieu has had the prudence to conceal them from those whom they might have hurt without hiding them from the wise.

He has especially profited from the two most thoughtful historians, Tacitus and Plutarch; but, though a philosopher familiar with these authors might have dispensed with many others, he neglected nothing that could be of use. The reading necessary for the 'Spirit of Laws' is immense; and the author's ingenuity is the more wonderful because he was almost blind, and obliged to depend on other men's eyes. This prodigious reading contributes not only to the utility, but to the agreeableness of the work. Without sacrificing dignity, M. de Montesquieu entertains the reader by unfamiliar facts, or by delicate allusions, or by those strong and brilliant touches which paint, by one stroke, nations and men.

In a word, M. de Montesquieu stands for the study of laws, as Descartes stood for that of philosophy. He often instructs us, and is sometimes mistaken; and even when he mistakes, he instructs those who know how to read him. The last edition of his works demonstrates, by its many corrections and additions, that when he has made a slip, he has been able to rise again.

But what is within the reach of all the world is the spirit of the 'Spirit of Laws,' which ought to endear the author to all nations, to cover far greater faults than are his. The love of the public good, a desire to see men happy, reveals itself everywhere; and had it no other merit, it would be worthy, on this account alone, to be read by nations and kings. Already we may perceive that the fruits of this work are ripe. Though M. de Montesquieu scarcely survived the publication of the 'Spirit of Laws,' he had the satisfaction to foresee its effects among us; the natural love of Frenchmen for their country turned toward its true object; that taste for commerce, for agriculture, and for useful arts, which insensibly spreads itself in our nation; that general knowledge of the principles of government, which renders people more attached to that which they ought to love. Even the men who have indecently attacked this work perhaps owe more to it than they imagine. Ingratitude, besides, is their least fault. It is not without regret and mortification that we expose them; but this history is of too much consequence to M. de Montesquieu and to philosophy to be passed over in silence. May that reproach, which at last covers his enemies, profit them!

The 'Spirit of Laws' was at once eagerly sought after on account of the reputation of its author; but though M. de Montesquieu had written for thinkers, he had the vulgar for his judge. The brilliant passages scattered up and down the work, admitted only because they illustrated the subject, made the ignorant believe that it was written for them. Looking for an entertaining book, they found a useful one, whose scheme and details they could not comprehend without attention. The 'Spirit of Laws' was treated with a deal of cheap wit; even the title of it was made a subject of pleasantry. In a word, one of the finest literary monuments which our nation ever produced was received almost with scurrility. It was requisite that competent judges should have time to read it, that they might correct the errors of the fickle multitude. That small public which teaches, dictated to that large public which listens to hear, how it ought to think and speak; and the suffrages of men of abilities formed only one voice over all Europe.

The open and secret enemies of letters and philosophy now united their darts against this work. Hence that multitude of pamphlets discharged against the author, weapons which we shall not draw from oblivion. If those authors were not forgotten, it might be believed that the 'Spirit of Laws' was written amid a nation of barbarians.

M. de Montesquieu despised the obscure criticisms of the curious. He ranked them with those weekly newspapers whose encomiums have no authority, and their darts no effect; which indolent readers run over without believing, and in which sovereigns are insulted without knowing it. But he was not equally indifferent about those principles of irreligion which they accused him of having propagated. By ignoring such reproaches he would have seemed to deserve them, and the importance of the object made him shut his eyes to the meanness of his adversaries. The ultra-zealous, afraid of that light which letters diffuse, not to the prejudice of religion, but to their own disadvantage, took different ways of attacking him; some, by a trick as puerile as cowardly, wrote fictitious letters to themselves; others, attacking him anonymously, had afterwards fallen by the ears among themselves. M. de Montesquieu contented himself with making an example of the most extravagant. This was the author of an anonymous periodical paper, who accused M. de Montesquieu of Spinozism and deism (two imputations which are incompatible); of having followed the system of Pope (of which there is not a word in his works); of having quoted Plutarch, who is not a Christian author; of not having spoken of original sin and of grace. In a word, he pretended that the 'Spirit of Laws' was a production of the constitution Unigenitus; a preposterous idea. Those who understand M. de Montesquieu and Clement XI. may judge, by this accusation, of the rest.

This enemy procured the philosopher an addition of glory as a man of letters: the 'Defense of the Spirit of Laws' appeared. This work, for its moderation, truth, delicacy of ridicule, is a model. M. de Montesquieu might easily have made his adversary odious; he did better—he made him ridiculous. We owe the aggressor eternal thanks for having procured us this masterpiece. For here, without intending it, the author has drawn a picture of himself; those who knew him think they hear him; and posterity, when reading his 'Defense,' will decide that his conversation equaled his writings—an encomium which few great men have deserved.

Another circumstance gave him the advantage. The critic loudly accused the clergy of France, and especially the faculty of theology, of indifference to the cause of God, because they did not proscribe the 'Spirit of Laws.' The faculty resolved to examine the 'Spirit of Laws.' Though several years have passed, it has not yet pronounced a decision. It knows the grounds of reason and of faith; it knows that the work of a man of letters ought not to be examined like that of a theologian; that a bad interpretation does not condemn a proposition, and that it may injure the weak to see an ill-timed suspicion of heresy thrown upon geniuses of the first rank. In spite of this unjust accusation, M. de Montesquieu was always esteemed, visited, and well received by the greatest and most respectable dignitaries of the Church. Would he have preserved this esteem among men of worth, if they had regarded him as a dangerous writer?

M. de Montesquieu's death was not unworthy of his life. Suffering greatly, far from a family that was dear to him, surrounded by a few friends and a great crowd of spectators, he preserved to the last his calmness and serenity of soul. After performing with decency every duty, full of confidence in the Eternal Being, he died with the tranquillity of a man of worth, who had ever consecrated his talents to virtue and humanity. France and Europe lost him February 10th, 1755, aged sixty-six.

All the newspapers published this event as a misfortune. We may apply to M. de Montesquieu what was formerly said of an illustrious Roman: that nobody, when told of his death, showed any joy or forgot him when he was no more. Foreigners were eager to demonstrate their regrets: my Lord Chesterfield, whom it is enough to name, wrote an article to his honor—an article worthy of both. It is the portrait of Anaxagoras drawn by Pericles. The Royal Academy of Sciences and Belles-Lettres of Prussia, though it is not its custom to pronounce a eulogy on foreign members, paid him an honor which only the illustrious John Bernoulli had hitherto received. M. de Maupertuis, though ill, performed himself this last duty to his friend, and would not permit so sacred an office to fall to the share of any other. To these honorable suffrages were added those praises given him, in presence of one of us, by that very monarch to whom this celebrated Academy owes its lustre; a prince who feels the losses which Philosophy sustains, and at the same time comforts her.

The 17th of February the French Academy, according to custom, performed a solemn service for him, at which all the learned men of this body assisted. They ought to have placed the 'Spirit of Laws' upon his coffin, as heretofore they exposed, opposite to that of Raphael, his Transfiguration. This simple and affecting decoration would have been a fit funeral oration.

M. de Montesquieu had, in company, an unvarying sweetness and gayety of temper. His conversation was spirited, agreeable, and instructive, because he had known so many great men. It was, like his style, concise, full of wit and sallies, without gall, and without satire. Nobody told a story more brilliantly, more readily, more gracefully, or with less affectation.

His frequent absence of mind only made him the more amusing. He always roused himself to reanimate the conversation. The fire of his genius, his prodigality of ideas, gave rise to flashes of speech; but he never interrupted an interesting conversation; and he was attentive without affectation and without constraint. His conversation not only resembled his character and his genius, but had the method which he observed in his study. Though capable of long-continued meditation, he never exhausted his strength; he always left off application before he felt the least symptom of fatigue.

He was sensible to glory, but wished only to deserve it, and never tried to augment his own fame by underhand practices.

Worthy of all distinctions, he asked none, and he was not surprised that he was forgot; but he has protected at court men of letters who were persecuted, celebrated, and unfortunate, and has obtained favors for them.

Though he lived with the great, their company was not necessary to his happiness. He retired whenever he could to the country; there again with joy to welcome his philosophy, his books, and his repose. After having studied man in the commerce of the world, and in the history of nations, he studied him also among those simple people whom nature alone has instructed. From them he could learn something; he endeavored, like Socrates, to find out their genius; he appeared as happy thus as in the most brilliant assemblies, especially when he made up their differences, and comforted them by his beneficence.

Nothing does greater honor to his memory than the economy with which he lived, and which has been blamed as excessive in a proud and avaricious age. He would not encroach on the provision for his family, even by his generosity to the unfortunate, or by those expenses which his travels, the weakness of his sight, and the printing of his works made necessary. He transmitted to his children, without diminution or augmentation, the estate which he received from his ancestors, adding nothing to it but the glory of his name and the example of his life. He had married, in 1715, dame Jane de Lartigue, daughter of Peter de Lartigue, lieutenant-colonel of the regiment of Molevrier, and had by her two daughters and one son.

Those who love truth and their country will not be displeased to find some of his maxims here. He thought: That every part of the State ought to be equally subject to the laws, but that the privileges of every part of the State ought to be respected when they do not oppose the natural right which obliges every citizen equally to contribute to the public good; that ancient possession was in this kind the first of titles, and the most inviolable of rights, which it was always unjust and sometimes dangerous to shake; that magistrates, in all circumstances, and notwithstanding their own advantage, ought to be magistrates without partiality and without passion, like the laws which absolve and punish without love or hatred. He said upon occasion of those ecclesiastical disputes which so much employed the Greek emperors and Christians, that theological disputes, when they are not confined to the schools, infallibly dishonor a nation in the eyes of its neighbors: in fact, the contempt in which wise men hold those quarrels does not vindicate the character of their country; because, sages making everywhere the least noise, and being the smallest number, it is never from them that the nation is judged.

We look upon that special interest which M. de Montesquieu took in the (Encyclopedic) as one of the most honorable rewards of our labor. Perhaps the opposition which the work has met with, reminding him of his own experience, interested him the more in our favor. Perhaps he was sensible, without perceiving it, of that justice which we dared to do him in the first volume of the 'Encyclopedic,' when nobody as yet had ventured to say a word in his defense. He prepared for us an article upon 'Taste,' which has been found unfinished among his papers. We shall give it to the public in that condition, and treat it with the same respect that antiquity formerly showed to the last words of Seneca. Death prevented his giving us any further marks of his approval; and joining our own griefs with those of all Europe, we might write on his tomb:—

"Finis vita ejus nobis luctuosus, patriae tristis, extraneis etiam ignotisque non sine cura fuit."



VITTORIO ALFIERI

(1749-1803)

BY L. OSCAR KUHNS

Italian literature during the eighteenth century, although it could boast of no names in any way comparable with those of Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso, showed still a vast improvement on the degradation of the preceding century. Among the most famous writers of the times—Goldoni, Parini, Metastasio—none is so great or so famous as Vittorio Alfieri, the founder of Italian tragedy. The story of his life and of his literary activity, as told by himself in his memoirs, is one of extreme interest. Born at Asti, on January 17th, 1749, of a wealthy and noble family, he grew up to manhood singularly deficient in knowledge and culture, and without the slightest interest in literature. He was "uneducated," to use his own phrase, in the Academy of Turin. It was only after a long tour in Italy, France, Holland, and England, that, recognizing his own ignorance, he went to Florence to begin serious work.

At the age of twenty-seven a sudden revelation of his dramatic power came to him, and with passionate energy he spent the rest of his life in laborious study and in efforts to make himself worthy of a place among the poets of his native land. Practically he had to learn everything; for he himself tells us that he had "an almost total ignorance of the rules of dramatic composition, and an unskillfulness almost total in the divine and most necessary art of writing well and handling his own language."

His private life was eventful, chiefly through his many sentimental attachments, its deepest experience being his profound love and friendship for the Countess of Albany,—Louise Stolberg, mistress and afterward wife of the "Young Pretender," who passed under the title of Count of Albany, and from whom she was finally divorced. The production of Alfieri's tragedies began with the sketch called 'Cleopatra,' in 1775, and lasted till 1789, when a complete edition, by Didot, appeared in Paris. His only important prose work is his 'Auto-biography' begun in 1790 and ended in the year of his death, 1803. Although he wrote several comedies and a number of sonnets and satires,—which do not often rise above mediocrity,—it is as a tragic poet that he is known to fame. Before him—though Goldoni had successfully imitated Moliere in comedy, and Metastasio had become enormously popular as the poet of love and the opera—no tragedies had been written in Italy which deserved to be compared with the great dramas of France, Spain, and England. Indeed, it had been said that tragedy was not adapted to the Italian tongue or character. It remained for Alfieri to prove the falsity of this theory.

Always sensitive to the charge of plagiarism, Alfieri declared that whether his tragedies were good or bad, they were at least his own. This is true to a certain extent. And yet he was influenced more than he was willing to acknowledge by the French dramatists of the seventeenth century. In common with Corneille and Racine, he observed strictly the three unities of time, place, and action. But the courtliness of language, the grace and poetry of the French dramas, and especially the tender love of Racine, are altogether lacking with him.

Alfieri had a certain definite theory of tragedy which he followed with unswerving fidelity. He aimed at the simplicity and directness of the Greek drama. He sought to give one clear, definite action, which should advance in a straight line from beginning to end, without deviation, and carry along the characters—who are, for the most part, helplessly entangled in the toils of a relentless fate—to an inevitable destruction. For this reason the well-known confidantes of the French stage were discarded, no secondary action or episodes were admitted, and the whole play was shortened to a little more than two-thirds of the average French classic drama. Whatever originality Alfieri possessed did not show itself in the choice of subjects, which are nearly all well known and had often been used before. From Racine he took 'Polynice,' 'Merope' had been treated by Maffei and Voltaire, and Shakespeare had immortalized the story of Brutus. The situations and events are often conventional; the passions are those familiar to the stage,—jealousy, revenge, hatred, and unhappy love. And yet Alfieri has treated these subjects in a way which differs from all others, and which stamps them, in a certain sense, as his own. With him all is sombre and melancholy; the scene is utterly unrelieved by humor, by the flowers of poetry, or by that deep-hearted sympathy—the pity of it all—which softens the tragic effect of Shakespeare's plays.

Alfieri seemed to be attracted toward the most horrible phases of human life, and the most terrible events of history and tradition. The passions he describes are those of unnatural love, of jealousy between father and son, of fratricidal hatred, or those in which a sense of duty and love for liberty triumphs over the ties of filial and parental love. In treating the story of the second Brutus, it was not enough for his purpose to have Caesar murdered by his friend; but, availing himself of an unproven tradition, he makes Brutus the son of Caesar, and thus a parricide.



It is interesting to notice his vocabulary; to see how constantly he uses such words as "atrocious," "horror," "terrible," "incest," "rivers," "streams," "lakes," and "seas" of blood. The exclamation, "Oh, rage" occurs on almost every page. Death, murder, suicide, is the outcome of every tragedy.

The actors are few,—in many plays only four,—and each represents a certain passion. They never change, but remain true to their characters from beginning to end. The villains are monsters of cruelty and vice, and the innocent and virtuous are invariably their victims, and succumb at last.

Alfieri's purpose in producing these plays was not to amuse an idle public, but to promulgate throughout his native land—then under Spanish domination—the great and lofty principle of liberty which inspired his whole life. A deep, uncompromising hatred of kings is seen in every drama, where invariably a tyrant figures as the villain. There is a constant declamation against tyranny and slavery. Liberty is portrayed as something dearer than life itself. The struggle for freedom forms the subjects of five of his plays,—'Virginia,' 'The Conspiracy of the Pazzi,' 'Timoleon,' the 'First Brutus,' and the 'Second Brutus.' One of these is dedicated to George Washington—'Liberator dell' America.' The warmth of feeling with which, in the 'Conspiracy of the Pazzi,' the degradation and slavery of Florence under the Medici is depicted, betrays clearly Alfieri's sense of the political state of Italy in his own day. And the poet undoubtedly has gained the gratitude of his countrymen for his voicing of that love for liberty which has always existed in their hearts.

Just as Alfieri sought to condense the action of his plays, so he strove for brevity and condensation in language. His method of composing was peculiar. He first sketched his play in prose, then worked it over in poetry, often spending years in the process of rewriting and polishing. In his indomitable energy, his persistence in labor, and his determination to acquire a fitting style, he reminds us of Balzac. His brevity of language—which shows itself most strikingly in the omission of articles, and in the number of broken exclamations—gives his pages a certain sententiousness, almost like proverbs. He purposely renounced all attempts at the graces and flowers of poetry.

It is hard for the lover of Shakespearean tragedy to be just to the merits of Alfieri. There is a uniformity, or even a monotony, in these nineteen plays, whose characters are more or less alike, whose method of procedure is the same, whose sentiments are analogous, and in which an activity devoid of incident hurries the reader to an inevitable conclusion, foreseen from the first act.

And yet the student cannot fail to detect great tragic power, sombre and often unnatural, but never producing that sense of the ridiculous which sometimes mars the effect of Victor Hugo's dramas. The plots are never obscure, the language is never trivial, and the play ends with a climax which leaves a profound impression.

The very nature of Alfieri's tragedies makes it difficult to represent him without giving a complete play. The following extracts, however, illustrate admirably the horror and power of his climaxes.

L. Oscar Kuhnes

AGAMEMNON

[During the absence of Agamemnon at the siege of Troy, Aegisthus, son of Thyestes and the relentless enemy of the House of Atreus, wins the love of Clytemnestra, and with devilish ingenuity persuades her that the only way to save her life and his is to slay her husband.]

ACT IV—SCENE I

AEGISTHUS—CLYTEMNESTRA

Aegisthus—To be a banished man, ... to fly, ... to die: ... These are the only means that I have left. Thou, far from me, deprived of every hope Of seeing me again, wilt from thy heart Have quickly chased my image: great Atrides Will wake a far superior passion there; Thou, in his presence, many happy days Wilt thou enjoy—These auspices may Heaven Confirm—I cannot now evince to thee A surer proof of love than by my flight; ... A dreadful, hard, irrevocable proof.

Clytemnestra—If there be need of death, we both will die!— But is there nothing left to try ere this?

Aegis.—Another plan, perchance, e'en now remains; ... But little worthy ...

Cly.—And it is—

Aegis.—Too cruel.

Cly.—But certain?

Aegis. Certain, ah, too much so!

Cly.—How Canst thou hide it from me?

Aegis.—How canst thou Of me demand it?

Cly.—What then may it be? ... I know not ... Speak: I am too far advanced; I cannot now retract: perchance already I am suspected by Atrides; maybe He has the right already to despise me: Hence do I feel constrained, e'en now, to hate him; I cannot longer in his presence live; I neither will, nor dare.—Do thou, Aegisthus, Teach me a means, whatever it may be, A means by which I may withdraw myself From him forever.

Aegis.—Thou withdraw thyself From him? I have already said to thee That now 'tis utterly impossible.

Cly.—What other step remains for me to take? ...

Aegis.—None.

Cly.—Now I understand thee.—What a flash. Oh, what a deadly, instantaneous flash Of criminal conviction rushes through My obtuse mind! What throbbing turbulence In ev'ry vein I feel!—I understand thee: The cruel remedy ... the only one ... Is Agamemnon's life-blood.

Aegis.—I am silent ...

Cly.—Yet, by thy silence, thou dost ask that blood.

Aegis.—Nay, rather I forbid it.—To our love And to thy life (of mine I do not speak) His living is the only obstacle; But yet, thou knowest that his life is sacred: To love, respect, defend it, thou art bound; And I to tremble at it.—Let us cease: The hour advances now; my long discourse Might give occasion to suspicious thoughts.— At length receive ... Aegisthus's last farewell.

Cly.—Ah! hear me ... Agamemnon to our love ... And to thy life? ... Ah, yes; there are, besides him, No other obstacles: too certainly His life is death to us!

Aegis.—Ah! do not heed My words: they spring from too much love.

Cly.—And love Revealed to me their meaning.

Aegis.—Hast thou not Thy mind o'erwhelmed with horror?

Cly.—Horror? ... yes; ... But then to part from thee! ...

Aegis.—Wouldst have the courage? ...

Cly.—So vast my love, it puts an end to fear.

Aegis.—But the king lives surrounded by his friends: What sword would find a passage to his heart?

Cly.—What sword?

Aegis.—Here open violence were vain.

Cly.—Yet, ... treachery! ...

Aegis.—'Tis true, he merits not To be betrayed, Atrides: he who loves His wife so well; he who, enchained from Troy, In semblance of a slave in fetters, brought Cassandra, whom he loves, to whom he is Himself a slave ...

Cly.—What do I hear!

Aegis.—Meanwhile Expect that when of thee his love is wearied, He will divide with her his throne and bed; Expect that, to thy many other wrongs, Shame will be added: and do thou alone Not be exasperated at a deed That rouses every Argive.

Cly.—What said'st thou? ... Cassandra chosen as my rival? ...

Aegis.—So Atrides wills.

Cly.—Then let Atrides perish.

Aegis.—How? By what hand?

Cly.—By mine, this very night, Within that bed which he expects to share With this abhorred slave.

Aegis.—O Heavens! but think ...

Cly.—I am resolved ...

Aegis.—Shouldst thou repent? ...

Cly.—I do That I so long delayed.

Aegis.—And yet ...

Cly.—I'll do it; I, e'en if thou wilt not. Shall I let thee, Who only dost deserve my love, be dragged To cruel death? And shall I let him live Who cares not for my love? I swear to thee, To-morrow thou shalt be the king in Argos. Nor shall my hand, nor shall my bosom tremble ... But who approaches?

Aegis.—'Tis Electra ...

Cly.—Heavens! Let us avoid her. Do thou trust in me.

SCENE II

ELECTRA

Electra—Aegisthus flies from me, and he does well; But I behold that likewise from my sight My mother seeks to fly. Infatuated And wretched mother! She could not resist The guilty eagerness for the last time To see Aegisthus.—They have here, at length, Conferred together ... But Aegisthus seems Too much elated, and too confident, For one condemned to exile ... She appeared Like one disturbed in thought, but more possessed With anger and resentment than with grief ... O Heavens! who knows to what that miscreant base, With his infernal arts, may have impelled her! To what extremities have wrought her up!... Now, now, indeed, I tremble: what misdeeds, How black in kind, how manifold in number, Do I behold! ... Yet, if I speak, I kill My mother: ... If I'm silent—? ...

ACT V—SCENE II

AEGISTHUS—CLYTEMNESTRA

Aegis.—Hast thou performed the deed?

Cly.—Aegisthus ...

Aegis.—What do I behold? O woman, What dost thou here, dissolved in useless tears? Tears are unprofitable, late, and vain; And they may cost us dear.

Cly.—Thou here? ... but how? ... Wretch that I am! what have I promised thee? What impious counsel? ...

Aegis.—Was not thine the counsel? Love gave it thee, and fear recants it.—Now, Since thou'rt repentant, I am satisfied; Soothed by reflecting that thou art not guilty, I shall at least expire. To thee I said How difficult the enterprise would be; But thou, depending more than it became thee On that which is not in thee, virile courage, Daredst thyself thy own unwarlike hand For such a blow select. May Heaven permit That the mere project of a deed like this May not be fatal to thee! I by stealth, Protected by the darkness, hither came, And unobserved, I hope. I was constrained To bring the news myself, that now my life Is irrecoverably forfeited To the king's vengeance...

Cly.—What is this I hear? Whence didst thou learn it?

Aegis.—More than he would wish Atrides hath discovered of our love; And I already from him have received A strict command not to depart from Argos. And further, I am summoned to his presence Soon as to-morrow dawns: thou seest well That such a conference to me is death. But fear not; for I will all means employ To bear myself the undivided blame.

Cly.—What do I hear? Atrides knows it all?

Aegis.—He knows too much: I have but one choice left: It will be best for me to 'scape by death, By self-inflicted death, this dangerous inquest. I save my honor thus; and free myself From an opprobrious end. I hither came To give thee my last warning: and to take My last farewell... Oh, live; and may thy fame Live with thee, unimpeached! All thoughts of pity For me now lay aside; if I'm allowed By my own hand, for thy sake, to expire, I am supremely blest.

Cly.—Alas!... Aegisthus... What a tumultuous passion rages now Within my bosom, when I hear thee speak!... And is it true?... Thy death...

Aegis.—Is more than certain....

Cly.—And I'm thy murderer!...

Aegis.—I seek thy safety.

Cly.—What wicked fury from Avernus' shore, Aegisthus, guides thy steps? Oh, I had died Of grief, if I had never seen thee more; But guiltless I had died: spite of myself, Now, by thy presence, I already am Again impelled to this tremendous crime... An anguish, an unutterable anguish, Invades my bones, invades my every fibre... And can it be that this alone can save thee?... But who revealed our love?

Aegis.—To speak of thee, Who but Electra to her father dare? Who to the monarch breathe thy name but she? Thy impious daughter in thy bosom thrusts The fatal sword; and ere she takes thy life, Would rob thee of thy honor.

Cly.—And ought I This to believe?... Alas!...

Aegis.—Believe it, then, On the authority of this my sword, If thou believ'st it not on mine. At least I'll die in time...

Cly.—O Heavens! what wouldst thou do? Sheathe, I command thee, sheathe that fatal sword.—Oh, night of horrors!... hear me... Perhaps Atrides Has not resolved...

Aegis.—What boots this hesitation?... Atrides injured, and Atrides king, Meditates nothing in his haughty mind But blood and vengeance. Certain is my death, Thine is uncertain: but reflect, O queen, To what thou'rt destined, if he spare thy life. And were I seen to enter here alone, And at so late an hour... Alas, what fears Harrow my bosom when I think of thee! Soon will the dawn of day deliver thee From racking doubt; that dawn I ne'er shall see: I am resolved to die:...—Farewell... forever!

Cly.—Stay, stay... Thou shalt not die.

Aegis.—By no man's hand Assuredly, except my own:—or thine, If so thou wilt. Ah, perpetrate the deed; Kill me; and drag me, palpitating yet, Before thy judge austere: my blood will be A proud acquittance for thee.

Cly.—Madd'ning thought!... Wretch that I am!... Shall I be thy assassin?...

Aegis.—Shame on thy hand, that cannot either kill Who most adores thee, or who most detests thee! Mine then must serve....

Cly.—Ah!... no....

Aegis.—Dost thou desire Me, or Atrides, dead?

Cly.—Ah! what a choice!...

Aegis.—Thou art compelled to choose.

Cly.—I death inflict ...

Aegis.—Or death receive; when thou hast witnessed mine.

Cly.—Ah, then the crime is too inevitable!

Aegis.—The time now presses.

Cly.—But ... the courage ... strength? ...

Aegis.—Strength, courage, all, will love impart to thee.

Cly.—Must I then with this trembling hand of mine Plunge ... in my husband's heart ... the sword? ...

Aegis.—The blows Thou wilt redouble with a steady hand In the hard heart of him who slew thy daughter.

Cly.—Far from my hand I hurled the sword in anguish.

Aegis.—Behold a steel, and of another temper: The clotted blood-drops of Thyestes's sons Still stiffen on its frame: do not delay To furbish it once more in the vile blood Of Atreus; go, be quick: there now remain But a few moments; go. If awkwardly The blow thou aimest, or if thou shouldst be Again repentant, lady, ere 'tis struck, Do not thou any more tow'rd these apartments Thy footsteps turn: by my own hands destroyed, Here wouldst thou find me in a sea of blood Immersed. Now go, and tremble not; be bold. Enter and save us by his death.—

SCENE III

AEGISTHUS

Aegis. Come forth, Thyestes, from profound Avernus; come, Now is the time; within this palace now Display thy dreadful shade. A copious banquet Of blood is now prepared for thee, enjoy it; Already o'er the heart of thy foe's son Hangs the suspended sword; now, now, he feels it: An impious consort grasps it; it was fitting That she, not I, did this: so much more sweet To thee will be the vengeance, as the crime Is more atrocious.... An attentive ear Lend to the dire catastrophe with me; Doubt not she will accomplish it: disdain, Love, terror, to the necessary crime Compel the impious woman.—

AGAMEMNON (within)

Aga.—Treason! Ah! ... My wife?.. O Heavens!.. I die... O traitorous deed!

Aegis.—Die, thou—yes, die! And thou redouble, woman. The blows redouble; all the weapon hide Within his heart; shed, to the latest drop, The blood of that fell miscreant: in our blood He would have bathed his hands.

SCENE IV

CLYTEMNESTRA—AESGISTHUS

Cly.—What have I done? Where am I?...

Aegis.—Thou hast slain the tyrant: now At length thou'rt worthy of me.

Cly.—See, with blood The dagger drips;... my hands, my face, my garments, All, all are blood... Oh, for a deed like this, What vengeance will be wreaked!... I see already Already to my breast that very steel I see hurled back, and by what hand! I freeze, I faint, I shudder, I dissolve with horror. My strength, my utterance, fail me. Where am I? What have I done?... Alas!...