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