Quesnay, the elder Mirabeau, Raynal, Morelly, Servan, Malesherbes, Voltaire, Beccaria, Filangieri, Blackstone, Ferguson, all descend from Montesquieu; and Gibbon found “the strong ray of philosophic light,” which “broke from Scotland in our times” upon political economy, only a reflection, though with a far steadier and more concentrated force, from the scattered but brilliant sparks kindled by the genius of Montesquieu.  Chateaubriand and Benjamin Constant imitated him; Talleyrand, the best servant France ever had , was his disciple.  Catherine of Russia said, “His ‘Esprit de Lois’ is the breviary of sovereigns.”  The men of the French Revolution swore by him.  Robespierre was parodying him when he said, “The principle of democratic government is virtue; the means of its establishment, terror;” and Napoleon honoured him by discarding him as an ideologist.
    France never had a wiser counselor, “his blood and judgment were so well commingled;” but he could not prevent the Revolution any more than Horatio could have saved Hamlet.
                                                                                                                              JOHN DAVIDSON.

London
    September 1891

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