man ever started on his travels better equipped by reading and observation, or with a more definite notion of what he wanted to see, hear, and know, or had better opportunities for finding out what was most worth knowing.
Montesquieu had already travelled in imagination through the countries which he was to visit in the flesh. In one of the earlier Persian Letters, written long before Montesquieu left France, Rhédi describes his sojourn at Venice. 'My mind is forming itself every day. I am instructing myself about the secrets of commerce, the interests of princes, the forms of government. I do not neglect even European superstitions. I apply myself to medicine, physics, astronomy. I am studying the arts. In fact, I am emerging from the clouds that covered my eyes in the country of my birth.'
That was the programme sketched out in advance, and he had excellent opportunities for carrying it out. At Vienna he spent 'delightful moments[1]' with that great captain, Prince Eugene of Savoy. At Venice he had long conversations with two famous adventurers, the Comte de Bonneval, and the Scotchman, Law. At Rome he made the acquaintance of Cardinal Alberoni and the exiled Stuarts. At Modena he conversed with the great antiquarian, Muratori. In England Lord Chesterfield's introduction brought him at once into the best political and social circles. His English journals, if they ever existed, are lost, and for our knowledge of his English experiences we are mainly dependent on the scanty but witty Notes on England, which were first published in 1818, and on the numerous references
- ↑ Letter to Abbé de Guasco of Oct. 4, 1752.
