ffiroabwa^ tCvanslations Age cannot u'llhvr Irr, )(Oi custom stale lit r infinite variet;/.*‘ tTranslatione MONTESQUIEU PERSIAN LETTERS I TnuiUaicd by JOHN DAVIDSON With an Intfodnction J.ONDON gkor(;e routledgk y soiNS ltd.
NIiW YOKK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
PKlNTXeiJ IN X.kKAT ItUlTAIN )JV THE EUINKUKOI ¥HH*Sn, 9 AND II YOUNO li'l REKT, KUl.NWURGH COXI'IlMTS Ills S('i aulu) III b palian., 30 , in Zathi to I ^brk. at Tauns.. 41 ,, 1 1. 1 ^b<-k to hi Wi u lul Ibistan. at Upalian 4S \I 1. I 'dx'k to ihf Samp, at Ispahan. 31) ,, Xl\' rsbck to tile Saiiu‘...04 ,, X\^ 'I'lu' lird h'annu h to Jaion, tha black lainuph. at m/proiini...06 ,, \\ I. Tslnk to thp Mollah M(>lu'nu't Ali, Cbianliaii ot Iha 'Ihn’p 'tombs at ,, XV lit, Moltali Ah'lit iiipt Ali, S»'i\ant (d the ,, XXI: I'slx'k to th' I tin t white haimich. 70 ,, XXll. laron to thi‘ Inst hainuch.. 77 ,, XXI II Issbek t(^ 1)1 > tnend Ibben, at Sinvi'iia 7S ,, XXIV: Ivu a to Ibbim. at Sinviiia.. yq ,, XXVI. bsln'k to Ko\ana, at the Sorai^lio at ,, XXVI 1. Iksbck to XtAsir, at Ispahan.. 88 iii CONTENTS Letter XXVTTI: Rica to * * ♦...89 ,, XXIX: Rica to Ibbcn, at Smyrna.. 92 ,, XXX: Rica to the Same, at Smyrna.. 94 ,, XX XI: Rhedi to Usbck, at Paris.. 96 „ XXXIII: Usbek to Rhedi, at Venice.. 98 „ XXXIV: Usbek to Ibben, at Smyrna.. 99 „ XXXV: Usbek to Gemchid, his Cousin, Dervish of the glorious INIonastery of Tauris...loi ,, XXXVI: Usbek to Rhedi, at Venice..103 ,, XXXVIT: Usbek to Ibbcn, at Smyrna.. 105 ,, XXXVIII: Rica to Ibbcn, at Smyrna o.. 107 ,, XXXIX: Hagi Ibbi to the Jew Bon Joshua, Mo- hammedan Proselyte, at Smyrna. 109 ,, XL: Usbek to Ibben, at Smyrna.. in ,, XLI: The chief black Eunuch to Usbek. 112 ,, XLII: PlAran to Usbek, his Sovereign Lord 113 ,, XLIII: Usbek to Pharan, at the Gardens of ,, XLIV: Usbek to Rhedi, at Venice,. 115 ,, XLVI: Usbek to JUiodi, at Venice..118 ,, XLVII: Zachi to Usbek, at Parrs..120 ,, XLVIII: Usbek to Rhedi, at Venice..122 ,, XLIX: Rica to Usbek, at * * *..129 ,, LI: Nargum, Persian Envoy in Muscovy, to Usbek, at Paris...131 ,, LIT: Rica to Irsbek, at * ’*' *..134 ,, LIIl: Zelis to Usbek, at Paris...i „ LIV: Rjca to Usbek, at * * *.. 13S ,, LV: Rica to Ibbcn, at Smyrna..140 ,, LVI: Usbek to Ibben, at Smyrna.. 143 ,, LVn: l-sbek to Rhedi, at \ enice., 144 ,, LVm; Rica to Rhedi, at Venice.. 140 ,, LIX: Rica to Usbek, at * * *.. 148 ,, LX: Usbek to Ibben, at Smyrna.. 149 ,, LXI: Usbek to Rhedi, at Venice.. 151 ,, LXI I: Zelis to Usbek, at Paris...158 LXIII: Rica to Ubek, at * * *.. i 55 ,, LXIV: The Chief of the black Eunuchs to Usbek, at Paris...156 ,, LXV: Usbek to his Wives, at the Seraglio at „ LXVII: Ibbcn to Usbek, at Paris..162 „ LXVITI: Rica to Usbek, at * ♦ *..17.^ ,, LXIX: Usbek to Rhedi, at Venice..175 ,, LXX: Zelis to Usbek, at Paris...178 „ LXXI: Usbek to Zelis...I79 „ LXXII: Rica to Ibben, at * ♦ ♦..180 IV CONTENTS Letter LXXIV: ITsbek to Kica, at * * * •.182 „ I.XXV: TIsbek to Rhedi, at Venice.. 183 ,, LXXVI: ITsbek to his friend Ibbcn, at Smyrna 185 LXXVII: Ibben to Usbck, at l^aris.. 187 LXXVI II: Rica to Usbck, at * ♦ *..188 ,, LXXTX: Uslxik to Rhedi, at Venice.. 192 ,, LX XX: The chief black Eunucli to Usbek, at ,, LXXXI: Uslx}k to Rhedi, at Venice.. 195 ,, LXXXIl: Narginn, T^crsian JCnvoy in Muscovy, to Usbck, at Paris...197 ,, LXXXIII: Rica to Ibben, at Smyrna.. 198 ,, LXXXJV: Usbck to Rhedi, at Venice.. 200 ,, LXXXVl: Usbek to Mirza, at Ispahan.. 202 LXXXVl II: Rica to * * *. ^..207 ,, LXXXIX: Usbek to Rliedi, at Venice.. 209 , XC: ILsbek to I])ben, at Smyrna..210 ,, XCT: Usbek to the Same, at Smyrna, 212 XCH: TIsbek to Riistan, at Ispahan. 213 ,, XUIII; ITsbek to Rhedi, at Venice.. 214 ,, XCIV: Usbek to his Jlrother. Santon at the Monastery of Casbin...216 ,, XCV: IVbek to Rhedi. cit \ cnice.. 217 XC'VIT: the Chief Juiniich to l^sbck, at Paris 221 ,, XCVIll: IXbek to Hassim, Dervish of the Mountain of Jaron...223 „ XCIX: Usbek to Ibben, at Smyrna.. 225 C: Hica to Rhedi, at Venire.. 227 ,, CT; bica to the Same...228 ., CHI: I 'sbek to Ibben, at Smyrna.. 231 ,, CIV: Usbek to the Same...234 ,, CV: Usbek to the Same...236 ,, CVI: Rhedi to Usbek, at Paris.. 237 ,, evil: Usb(’k to Rhedi, at Venice.. 239 ,, evil I: Rua to Ibben, at Smyrna.. 243 ,, CXI II: Rhedi to T'sbek, at Paris.. 250 ,, CXIV: Usbek to Rhedi, at Venice.. 253 ,, CXV: ITsbek to the Same...255 CXVI: Usbek to the Same...258 ,, CXVI I: Usbek to the Same...259 ,, CXVITI: Usbek to the Same...262 ,, CXIX: I' sbek to the Same.., 265 ,, eXX: Usbek to the Same...266 ,, CXXl: Usbek to the Same...267 ,, CXXII: Usbck to the Same...268 V CONTENTS PAGE Letter CXXIII: Usbek to the Same...272 „ CXXIV: Usbek to the Mollah Mehemet Ali, Guardian of the Three Tombs, at „ CXXV: Usbek to Rhedi, at Venice.. 275 „ CXXVII: Rica to Usbek, at ♦ ♦ *..279 ,, CXXVI 1 1: Rica to Ibben, at Smyrna.. 280 „ CXXIX: Rica to Usbek, at * * *..281 „ CXXXI: Rhedi to Rica, at Paris.. 288 „ CXXXIV: Rica to the Same...294 „ CXXXV: Rica to the Same...296 ,, CXXXVI: Rica to the Same...298 ,, CXXXVI I:,Rica to the Same...300 ,, CXXXVIII: Rica to Ibben, at Smyrna.. 302 ,, CXXXI X: Rica to the Same...305 ,, CXL: Rica to Usbek...306 ,, CXLI: Rica to the Same, at * * *.. 306 „ CXLIII: Rica to Nathaniel Levi, Jewish Physician at Leghorn.. 322 ,, CXLIV: Usbek to Rica...-330 „ CXLVI: Usbek to Rhedi, at Venice. -33^ ,, CXLVII: The Chief Eunuch to Usbek, at Paris 338 ,, CXI-VIII: Usbek to the Chief Eunuch, at the Seraglio at Ispahan...339 CXLIX: Narsit to Usbek, at Paris.. 340 ,, CL: Usbek to Narsit, at the Seraglio at Ispahan...340 ,, CLI; Solim to Usbek, at Paris,.341 „ CLI I: Narsit to Usbek, at Paris.. 342 „ CLIII: Usbek to Solim, at the Seraglio at Ispahan 343 ,, CLIV: Usbek to his Wives, at the Seraglio at Ispahan...344 ,, CLV: Usbek to Nessir, at Ispahan. 344 ,, CLVI; Roxana to Usbek, at Paris.. 346 „ CLVII: Zachi to Usbek, at Paris.. 347 „ CLVI 1 1: Zelis to Usbek, at Paris.. 348 „ CLIX: Solim to Usbek, at Paris.. 348 „ CLX: Solim to Usbek, at Paris.. 349 „ CLXI: Roxana to Usbek, at Paris.. s5o INDEX 353 VI LIST OF t ETCHINGS BY ED. DE BEAUMONT ENGRAVED BY E. DOILVIN 1. Portrait of Montesquieu 4. Punishment of Zachi . Frontispiece To face page 116 INTRODUCTION I Of all great French authors perhaps Montesquieu is the least known in this country. It is more than a hundred yeUrs since any work of his was translated into Englisli, and no greater signof the neglect which has befallen him could be instanced than the in ire- qiiency of the appearance of his name in our periodical and journalistic literature, at a time when our ideas of govcrnmeiil are once more in the crucible. The greater fame of Voltaire and Rousseau, and the absorbing interest of the ITench Revolution, are the principal causes of this neglect * at the same time, had there been anything in the shaj>e of a true bio- graphy of Montesquieu, a living picture of the man, the operation of these causes might have been in some degree obviated.
It was the custom under the ancicn regime in the great law-families lor the eldest son to compose a life of his father: a document de.signcd to hide the actual man behind a mask oi the domestic and legal virtues so elfectually that his lriend> and colleagues should be unable to recognise him. Such a memoirc pour servir in the highest style of the art. Montesquieus son prepared and published in 1755. The eulogies of D’Alembert, Maupertui.s, and the t'hevalier de Solig- nac, founded, all of them, so tar as they refer to Montesquieu’s life, upon this lilial ethgy, represent only a mask with the conventional air proper to a great and good man.
I A INTRODUCTION I A INTRODUCTION This lack of a truthful picture has’ of course, had a bad effect on Montesquieu’s fame in France as well as in England. Least known, until recently, as regards his life, of all the great Frenchmen of the eighteenth century, he has had perhaps the most varied fortune of all writers of that or any other age. For about fifty years after his death, his reputation was un- rivalled; but from 1789 till 1814, the alternations of feeling towards him in France were as extravagant as if he had been a living agent in the Revolfition and its sequel, “ now extolled to the clouds as the master of political science, as the man of genius who had re- discovered the ti^le-deeds of the human race; now denounced as laudator temporis acti, the apostle of privilege, and the defender of abuses.” Abandoned and condemned in evil times, he has always re- appeared when France has recognised its truest interests. Under the Consulate and the First Empire he is intentionally forgotten, but in 1814 he comes to the front once more. Publishers and editors were seized about that time with a ” sort of fury ’ for the works of Montesquieu, and from 1819 till 1834 numerous annotated editions appeared. Then again there came a period ot eclipse, and it was not until the close of the Second Empire that France, once more free, resumed the study of him who first tried to show it what freedom meant.
In 1875 M. Edouard Laboulaye’s edition of Montes- quieu's works, perhaps the best, was published in seven volumes; and in 1878 M. Louis Vian issued his " Histoire de Montesquieu,” the most important work on Montesquieu that has yet appeared. M. Vian had access to much unpublished matter; and his book, which is the result of fifteen years of study and re- search, supplies that biography for want of which 2 INTRODUCTION Montesquieu’s petsonality has hitherto been as vague as a spectre. • In short, they seem at last in France in a fair way to get something like the true focus of Montesquieu, to have him placed in his proper niche: to understand him, even to label him. For he is not one of the very greatest whom it is criminal, and indeed impossible, to docket and define until one can look at them through the thought of many generations.
It is from M. Vian’s biography that the material for this introduction is mainly drawn. The writer is also indebted to M. Albert Sorel’s monograph on Montesquieu, and to the prefaces pf M. Laboulaye. For the translation, the editions used were those of M. Laboulaye and M. Tourneux, the text of the former having been followed as a rule; the notes in both have been found very serviceable.
II II Like Montaigne, Montesquieu was a Gascon. His father, Jacques de Secondat, married Marie-Frangoise de Penel, the descendant of an English family which had remained in France after the English rule had ceased there. Slie was an only child, and her husband received with her the title and barony of La BrMe, an estate in Gascon}^, with a fantastic old Gothic donjon built in tlie thirteenth century. Montesquieu was the second of six children. The date ot his birth is not known, but he was baptized on the i8th of January, 1O89. His godfather, like the godfathers of Montaigne in 1553, of the lord of Beauvais in 1644, and of the Comte de Bulfon in 1742, was a beggar belonging to the district, chosen “ in order that his godchild might remember all his life that the poor are his brothers.”
3 INTRODUCTION He was christened Charles-Louis, ai^ bore, according to a curious custom of the time, the surname of De la BrMe, the patronymic, De Secondat, being reserved for the head of the house.
His nurse was a miller's wife, and the first three years of his life were spent with her. Most of those who have written of Montesquieu have attributed his constant use of the Gascon accent, and of certain idioms and solecisms, to these three years. Is it likely, if he had not heard the Gascon accent in his father’s household,' and probably from his father’s lips, that the ef{(ict of his lisping in a patois in his earliest infancy would have remained with him all his life? If, however, he heard nothing in his father’s house but the best “ French of Paris,” his close and lasting friendship with his foster-brother, Jean Demarennes, is a sufficient cause for the perpetuation of his Gasconisms. But the point is of small moment.
Montesquieu’s mother died when he was seven years old, and four years after, in 1700, he was sent to the college of the Oratorian Fathers at Juilly, near Meaux, in the department of Seine-et-Marne. There he remained till 1711. He was docile and diligent, and the solid foundation laid in Juilly enabled him to become the best informed writer of his time in France. In the year in which he left Juilly he wrote his first non-scholastic piece — the first, at least, of which we know anything. It was a refutation, in the form of a letter, of the doctrine of the eternal damnation of idolaters: the substance of it he afterwards incor- porated in the “ Persian Letters.” ' ' Letter XXXV.
4 INTRODUCTION III On leaving college Montesquieu began to study law. It was natural, as both his grandfathers had been presidents of the Parliament of Guienne, and his uncle occupied a similar position. Methodiccil in all things, he studied jurisprudence according to a plan of his own, the draft of which still exists; and found plenty of time to frequent the best, salons of Bordeaux, in which the rank of his family and his own reputation as a young man of talent secured hirA a welcome. The chief figure in Bordeaux society at that time was the Duke of Berwick,^ the son of James II. and Marl- borough’s sister. This careful soldier and upright man, the only cool-headed and thoroughly sensible scion of the House of Stuart, perceived the merit of Montesquieu, and a friendship sprang up between them which ended only with the Duke’s death. Montes- quieu cherished his memory, and among his papers was found a warm and eloquent eulogy of the victor of Almanza.
In 1713 Montesquieu’s father died, and his uncle, the Baron de Montesquieu, took upon himself the duties of guardian. Two months after his nephew had reached his twenty-fifth year, he caused him to be appointed a lay-councillor of the Parliament of Guienne; and a year later, on the 30th of April 1715, Montesquieu married the girl of his uncle’s choice, the Demoiselle Jeanne Lartigue, a plain-looking Calvinist, inclined to limp,® but frank, good-natured, and with a dowry of a hundred thousand livres. Love had nothing to do with the marriage: Montesquieu’s 1 Governor of Guienne, 1716-1719.
5 INTRODUCTION wife was his housekeeper, and tHe mother of his heir.
In the beginning of 1716 his uncle died, leaving him sole legatee on condition that he should call himself Montesquieu. Besides the name, which he had already adopted on the day of his marriage, he in- herited a house in Bordeaux, lands in Agenois, and the position of President a mortier in the Parliament of Guienne. His installation took place iq July, 1716, and he retained his presidentship till 1728.
Of the twelve provincial parliaments of France, that of Guienne, which sat at Bordeaux, ranked third with regard to the extent of its jurisdiction. It was directed by six presidents a mortier,^ and as it possessed political, religious, administrative, and judicial attri- butes, the proper performance of the duties of a president entailed considerable study, and were in themselves by no means light. Montesquieu is believed to have given them sufficient attention, although on his own showing,* he did not understand legal procedure; but no trace remains of his judicial functions.
His official duties did not by any means occupy him exclusively. After the Academies of Caen and Paris, that of Bordeaux, having been established in 1712, is the most ancient. Three years after its constitution, Montesquieu was admitted, and became one of its most enthusiastic members. Wherever he was, and in whatever he might be engaged, he had always time to attend to its interests. More than once in acknow- ledgment of his many services he was appointed president. Much of the work he prepared for the 1 So called because they wore a cap of the shape of a mortar, made of black velvet, ornamented with a gold band.
2 " Pens^es.”
6 INTRODUCTION Academy has b 5 ten lost; of the dissertation which was considered the most remarkable, only the title remains — " The Religious Policy of the Romans.” Medicine, physics, natural history, were all studied, and numerous discourses written. The effect of these studies is to be found throughout all his works, the principal definitions in “ L’Esprit des Lois ” itself being, not those of a lawyer or metaphysician, but rather of a geometer and naturalist.
IV IV In all likelihood the idea of the ” Persian Letters ” occurred to Montesquieu before he left college. The first of them, dated the 2ist of the moon of Muharram (January), 1711, was written in his twenty-second year; the last in his thirty-second. Reflections of his favourite reading are to be found in their frame- work, and critics have pointed out many resemblances to Dufresney's " Amusements,” “ The Turkish Spy,” “ The Spectator,” the " Decameron,” with borrowings from Erasmus and other less-known writers. But Montesquieu has at least spoiled nothing that he has used. The “ Letters ” were printed in Amsterdam, and published anonymously in 1721; and at once, as a friend of Montesquieu’s had predicted, " they sold like loaves.” No French writer had ever before said so perfectly what all felt and were trying to say; and it was done so skilfully, so pleasantly, like a man telling a story after supper.
At the time they appeared the social order of the ancien regime was beginning to crumble about the monarchy. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, by exiling the Huguenots, had deprived the 7 INTRODUCTION country of many of its most industi^bus subjects, and struck a disastrous blow at its trade; the power of France, built up peacefully by Mazarin and Colbert, had been shattered at Ramillies and Malplaquet; and Louis XIV. ’s acceptance of the Bull Unigenitns, directed against the Jansenists, had destroyed the last remnant of religious liberty. As for the parlia- ments, they were only able to mumble and grumble, endless edicts having pulled their teeth, as it were, one by one; and the condition of the people was desperate in the extreme. It is no wonder that when Louis XIV. died, tjie middle and lower classes thanked God with " scandalous frankness ” as for a long- expected and certain deliverance. The upper cla.sses were delighted also, although they hardly returned thanks in the same quarter, nor for the same relief. It was not a lightening of taxation, some liberty of conscience, more equal laws, tliat tlic latter antici- pated, but the old licence, the " unchained liber- tinage,” the idea of which had ne\’er disaj)]X'ared, but had been handed down, as Sainte-Reuve says, in direct and uninterrupted descent from the Renaissance to the Fronde, from the Fronde to the Regency, through De Retz, Saint-Evremond, Vendome, Bayle, to the Epicureans, Pyrrhonists, professors of an imperturbable impiety, tlie unbelievers, as full and certain in their unbelief as Bossuet w'as in his faith, who made a byword of the eight years from the death of Louis XIV. to his successor’s assumption of power. Grown sanctimonious in his old age, Louis XIV. had made his subjects hypocrites. At his death the boast of vice succeeded to ostentatious devotion; the court like one man changed from Tartuffe into Don Juan. All things were discussed, examined, and torn to shreds. The intestine quarrels of the Church gave 8 INTRODUCTION scoffers the opportunity they would have made. Dubois debauched politics; Law, finance; and the populace debauched themselves: for gaming, which had before been confined to people of quality, became the common amusement. Incest, too, was quite h la mode; and those who could not be in the height of the fashion had to be satisfied with lesser vices. The autocratic rule of the Grand Monarqne gave place to the laissez-aller of Philip of Orleans, the " unbelieving Regent.” llope, desire, speculation, knew no bounds, all things in heaven above and ill the earth beneath having become common and unclean. It is this period that is reflected and criticised in the " Persian Letters.”
V V The ” Persian Letters ” are the correspondence of several Persians, on a visit to Europe, with each other and tlieir friends in Ispahan. Rica, the younger of the two principal writers, is good-luimoured, sarcastic, and represents the lighter side of Montesquieu’s nature. His lively intellect makes him a keen observer; his youth and liealth enable him to go everywhere, see everybody, and experience everything. He describes tlie surface of societ}’ with a (piick glance that some- times pierces deep enough, too. The King of France, althougli he has no mines of gold and silver, like the King of Spain, is much wealthier, deriving supplies from an inexhaustible source, the vanity of his sub- jects. He is likewise a magician, for his dominion extends to the minds of his subjects. If he has a costly war on hand, and is short of money, he simply suggests that a piece of paper is a coin of the realm, and his people are straightway convinced of it. But 9 INTRODUCTION this is a small matter. There is a hiuch more power- ful magician, the Pope, to wit, who sometimes makes the King believe that three are no more than one; that the bread he eats is not bread, and the wine he drinks not wine. It is Rica who makes the discovery that the Christian religion practically consists in the non-fulfilment of an immense number of tedious duties; and it is he who quotes the epitaph on the diner-out, which recalls by its numerical exactness TeufelsdrOck’s epitaph on Philippus Zaehdarm. " Here,” it runs, ” Vests one who never rested before. He assisted at five hundred and thirty funerals. He made merry at the births of two thousand six hundred and eighty children. He wished his friends joy, always varying the phrase, upon pensions amount- ing to two millions six hundred thousand livres; in town he walked nine thousand six hundred furlongs, in the country thirty-six furlongs. His conversa- tion was pleasing; he had a ready-made stock of three hundred and sixty-five stories; he was acquainted also from his youth with a hundred and eighteen apophthegms derived from the ancients, which he employed on special occasions. He died at last in the sixtieth year of his age. I say no more, stranger; for how could I ever have done telling you all that he did and all that he saw? ” ^ It is Rica who sketches the alchemist in his garret, praying fatu- ously that God would enable him to make a good use of his wealth; the people whose conversation is a mirror which reflects only their own impertinent faces; the professional wits planning a conversation of an hour’s length to consist entirely of bans mots; the compilers who produce masterpieces by shifting the books in a library from one shelf to another; the > Letter LXXXVIII. XO INTRODUCTION universal “ decid^,” who knew more about Ispahan than his Persian interlocutor; the French Academy, a body with forty heads, all of them chokeful of tropes, metaphors, and antitheses; the geometer, a martyr to his own accuracy, who was offended by a witty remark, as weak eyes are annoyed by too strong a light; the quidnuncs, petits-maitres, lazy magis- trates, financiers, bankrupts, and opera-dancers.
Usbek is older, graver, given to meditation and reflection. Although from his earliest youth a courtier, he has remained uncomipted. As he could not flatter, his sincerity made hjm enemies, and brought upon him the jealousy of the ministers. His life being in danger, he forsook the court, and retired to liis country-house. Even there persecution fol- lowed liim, and he determined on the journey to Europe. Rica went as his companion.
Tlie opening paragraph of Letter XLVIIL, in which Usbek characterises himself, is undoubtedly descriptive of Montesquieu. “ Although I am not employed in any business of importance, I am yet constantly occupied. I spend my time observing, and at night I write down what I have noticed, what I liave seen, what I have heard during the day. I am interested in everything, astonished at everything; I am like a child, whose organs, still over-sensitive, are vividly impressed by the merest trifles.” Usbek can be as brilliant and satirical on occasion as his younger companion, but his aim is to probe to the heart of things, and he knows that truth \vill only reveal itself to a reverent search. To him all religions are worthy of respect, and their ministers also, for ” God has chosen for Himself, in every corner of the earth,.souls purer than the rest, whom He has separ- ated from the impious world that their mortification II INTRODUCTION and their fervent prayers may suspend His wrath.” He thinks that the surest way to please God is to obey the laws of society, and to do our duty towards men. Ever3'^ religion assumes that God loves men, since He establishes a religion for their happiness; and since He loves men we are certain of pleasing Him in loving them, too. Usbek’s prayer in Letter XLVI. is not yet out of date. “ Lord, I do not understand any of those discussions that are carried on without end regarding Thee; I would serve Thee according to Thy will; but each man whom I consult would have me serve Thee according to his.” He insists that religion is intended for man’s happiness; and that, in order to love it and fulfil its behests, it is not neces- sary to hate and persecute those who are opposed to our beliefs — not necessary even to attempt to convert them. Indeed, he holds that variety of lielief is beneficial to a state. A new sect is always the surest means of correcting the abuses of an old faith; and those who profess tolerated creeds usually prove more useful to their country than those who profess the established religion, because, being excluded from all honours, their endeavour to distinguish themselves by becoming wealthy improves trade and commerce. Proselytism, with its intolerance, its affliction of the consciences of others, its wars and inquisitions, is an epidemic disease which the Jews caught from the Egyptians, and which pas.sed from them to the Christians and Mohammedans, a capricious mood which can be compared only to a total eclipse of human reason. “ He who would have me change my re- ligion is led to that, without doubt, because he would not change his own, although force were employed; and yet he finds it strange that I will not do a thing which he himself will not do, perhaps for the empire 12 INTRODUCTION of the world.” ‘ *»Usbek is a sophist, but it is quite evident that he is no bigot; he even goes further than Montesquieu himself, a wit of the Regency, felt to be right; and when he praises suicide as being no more a disturbance of the order of Providence than the making a round stone square, he is rapped over the knuckles with the reminder that the preservation of the union of body and soul is the chief sign of sub- mission to the decrees of the Creator.
Usbek has his character-sketches as well as Rica. He gives a lively description of 'those geniuses who frequent the coffee-houses, and on quitting them believe themselves four times wittier than when they entered. The savage king sitting on his block of wood, dressed in his own skin, and inquiring of the sailors if they talked much of him in France, is an illustration of his. One letter, the forty-eighth, is quite a picture-gallery. Usbek is in the country at the house of a man of some note; and he describes to his friend Rhedi various members of the company he meets. There are vulgar farmers-general who brag of their cooks; jaunty confessors, necessities of female existence, who can cure a headache better than any medicine; poets, the grotesquest of human- kind, declaring that they are born so; the old soldier, who cannot endmv tlic thought that France has gained any battles without him; and last, but not least, the lady-killer who has a talk with Usbek. ” ‘ It is fine weather,’ he said. ‘ Will you take a turn with me in the garden? ’ I replied as civilly as I could, and we went out together. ‘ I have come to the country,’ said he, ‘ to please the mistress of the house, with w'hom I am not on the worst of terms. There is a certain woman in the world who w'ill be rather out 1 Letter LXXXVL 13 INTRODUCTION