and would furnish the material for spicy anecdotes and good talk. Like
the jesters of the Middle Ages, the philosophers of the eighteenth
century found in the use of pranks and buffoonery the best way of
telling the truth.

Until about the middle of the century, Montesquieu was the dominating
figure in French thought. His second book--_Considérations sur la
Grandeur et la Décadence des Romains_--is an exceedingly able work, in
which a series of interesting and occasionally profound historical
reflections are expressed in a style of great brilliance and
incisiveness. Here Montesquieu definitely freed history from the
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