English institutions, Montesquieu nevertheless failed to give an
accurate account of them. He believed that he had found in them a signal
instance of his favourite theory of the beneficial effects produced by
the separation of the three powers of government--the judicial, the
legislative, and the executive; but he was wrong. In England, as a
matter of fact, the powers of the legislative and the executive were
intertwined. This particular error has had a curious history.
Montesquieu's great reputation led to his view of the constitution of
England being widely accepted as the true one; as such it was adopted by
the American leaders after the War of Independence; and its influence is
plainly visible in the present constitution of the United States. Such
is the strange power of good writing over the affairs of men!

At about the same time as the publication of the _Lettres Persanes_,
there appeared upon the scene in Paris a young man whose reputation was
eventually destined far to outshine that of Montesquieu himself. This
young man was François Arouet, known to the world as VOLTAIRE. Curiously
enough, however, the work upon which Voltaire's reputation was
originally built up has now sunk into almost complete oblivion. It was
as a poet, and particularly as a tragic poet, that he won his fame; and
it was primarily as a poet that
he
continued to be known to his contemporaries during the first sixty years
of his life (1694-1754). But to-day his poetry--the serious part of it,
at least,--is never read, and his tragedies--except for an occasional
revival--are never acted. As a dramatist Voltaire is negligible for the
very reasons that made him so successful in his own day. It was not his
object to write great drama, but to please his audience: he did please
them; and, naturally enough, he has not pleased posterity. His plays are
melodramas--the melodramas of a very clever man with a great command of