M O N 



661 



M N 



Montifu*, excited in the world, was finally gratified by the publi- 



Uontiubon. cation of all her poems and letters in 1S03. The etli- 



""" "V~ * tion, undertaken at the request of her grandson, the 



Earl of Bute, was superintended by Mr. Daliaway, who 



prefixed to it a life of the author. 



Concerning the merits of Lady Montagu's poems, it 

 is not necetsary to say much. Suggested chiefly by 

 ephemeral topics, they seem to have been written with- 

 out great care. They are not polished, but across their 

 frequent harshness and infelicity of expression, we can 

 easily discern considerable vivacity of conception, ac- 

 companied with some acutenets in discriminating cha- 

 racter and delineating manners. It is to be regretted 

 that they are not always free from indelicacy. 



But Lady Mary's principal merit is to be sought for 

 in her letters. Those written during the embassy were 

 loudly applauded at first, and they have since maintain- 

 ed a conspicuous place in this still scanty department 

 of English literature. The official character of Mr. 

 U'ortley procured her admittance to whatever was 

 splendid or attractive in every country which thty vi- 

 Mted. She seems to have been contented with her- 

 self, and therefore willing to be pleased with other* ; 

 and her cheerful sprightly imagination, the elegance, 

 tite esae, and airiness of her style, are deservedly admi- 

 red. Succeeding and more minute observers have con- 

 firmed the accuracy of her graphic descriptions. Her 

 other letter* are of a similar stamp. The continual 

 gaiety, the pungent wit, with which she details the 

 passing follies of a court, but too successfully imitating 

 that of Louis XV., render her letters extremely amu- 

 sing. In those written from her retirement at Lover, 

 we discern the same shrewdness of observation, with a 

 little more careles*nes of expression. The pensive, 

 calm regret, which they breathe, and, above all, the 

 tender affection for her daughter, the Coontes* of Bute, 

 to whom they are generally addressed, perhaps more 

 than compensate for the absence of that How of spirits 

 and exuberance of incident, which distinguished the cor- 

 respondence of her youth. In a literary point of view, 

 Lady Mary's writings certainly do not belong to a very 

 derated clMS, but they occupy the first, rank in their 

 claw. Considering the times and the circumstance* of 

 the writer, they may "^7 be called extraordinary. 

 And, though the general diffusion of knowledge within 

 the last century has rendered it common for females to 

 write with elegance and skill upon far higher subjects, 

 Lady Mary deserves to be remembered as the first 

 Englishwoman, who combined the knowledge of classi- 

 cal and modern literature with a penetrating judgment 

 and correct Uofr. (T. c.) 



NK )\ r A I 'HAN, a town of France, and the capital 

 nf the department of the Tarn and Garonne. It is 

 ituatnl upon elevated ground on the Tarn, which pur- 

 sues a winding course beneath it, through meadows 

 and woods. It consists of the old and new town, on 

 the right bank of the Tarn, and of the Villc de Hour- 

 bon, on the left, the communication being made by 

 a bridge of brick. The streets nd hoimes are in ge- 

 neral good. The square in the centre has good 

 buildinfri of painted brick, with a double range of ar- 

 cades. From this square eight streets diverge. The 

 chief public buildings and establishments, arc the cathe- 

 dral, the bishop's palace, the ci-devant college of the Je- 

 suit*, an observatory, a society of arts and sciences, and 

 a public library. The Protestant university, suppressed 

 in IG2<), waa re-estabiisned by Bonaparte in 1810, and 



has four professors of divinity. The chief raanufac. 

 tures of the place are silk stuffs, stockings, linens, serge, 

 and woollen stuffs. From the elevated public walk, 

 called the Falaise, there is a splendid view over one of 

 the finest plains in France. The view extends to the 

 distance of 30 leagues, and is terminated on one side 

 by the sea, and on the other by the Pyrenr.ees. Po- 

 pulation of the town 24,000, about half of whom live 

 within the walls. The position of the observatory is 

 in East Long. 1 20' 45", and North Lat. 44 3 O 55\ 



MONT BLANC. See BLANC. 



MONTESQUIEU, (Charles de Secondat, baron of) 

 and likewise of la Brede, was born at the mansion- 

 house of the latter estate, near Bourdeaux, on the 18th 

 of January, HiSQ. His father, at one time a soldier, 

 had soon relinquished that profession : and young 

 Montesquieu was early destined to the bar, from which 

 his paternal grandfather and uncle had successively 

 risen to the dignity of president a mortiir* in the par- 

 liament of their native province. His education was 

 carefully attended to ; and the flattering presages of 

 childhood, being in this case followed by judicious 

 management, were afterwards completely verified. On 

 the 24th of February 1714, he became an advocate in 

 the parliament of Bourdeaux ; and the office of presi- 

 dent ii morlier in that court was consigned to him by 

 the uncle already mentioned, on the 13th of July 1716. 

 He also inherited the property of that relation, who 

 had lost an only son. 



The new president sustained the reputation which 

 his predecessor had acquired. His colleagues shewed 

 what opinion they entertained of his address and in- 

 tegrity, by charging him with the remonstrance, which 

 they judged it proper to make, against the imposition 

 of new tax, during the minority of Louis XV. in 

 1722. This delicate task he successfully accomplished. 



But the attainment of professional honour was not 

 the chief object of Montesquieu's ambition. Follow- 

 ing the instinctive bent of genius, he was unwearied 

 in acquiring general knowledge ; and his vigorous 

 mind seems, at an early period, to have conceived the 

 germ of those ideas, which he afterwards so brilliantly 

 developed in his writings. Before the age of twenty, 

 he had studied, with higher views than those of a 

 mere lawyer, the voluminous works which treat of 

 Roman jurisprudence : his regular abstract of their con- 

 tents was probably the ground-work of the Esprit ties 

 Loit. But though already cherishing the hope of fame, 

 he felt no impatience to shew himself before the world. 

 It was not till the age of thirty-two, that his first pro- 

 duction, the l*tlrts Pertanet, was given to the public 

 in 17^1, without the author's name. If the Siamois of' 

 Dufreni, or the Erpion Turc, suggested the plan of this 

 work, its execution is entirely original. " The deli- 

 neation of oriental manners," says d'Alembert, " real 

 or supposed, of the pride and the dullness of Asiatic 

 love, is brt the smallest of the author's objects ; it 

 serve* only, so to speak, as a pretext for his delicate 

 satire of our customs ; and for other important matters 

 which he fathoms, though appearing but to glance at 

 them." The work was generally read and admired : 

 but some censures bestowed upon the conduct of Louis 

 XIV. caused it to be regarded with an evil eye at 

 Court ; and one or two sarcasms levelled at the Pope 

 awakened the zeal of such as were rigidly devout, or 

 found it convenient to seem so. The author was in- 

 dustriously represented as a man equally hostile to the 



Mont 

 Blanc 



Vkt 



A mortirr itlatts to th iptcws of cap won by that oflkr. 



