BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCLX. OCTOBER, 1845. Vol. LVIII.
CONTENTS.
| Montesquieu, | 389 |
| A Reminiscence of Boyhood. By Delta, | 408 |
| De Burtin on Pictures, | 413 |
| Manner and Matter, | 431 |
| Marston; or, the Memoirs of a Statesman. Conclusion. | 439 |
| How we Got Up the Glenmutchkin Railway, | 453 |
| The Science of Languages. Kavanagh, | 467 |
| Scrambles in Monmouthshire, | 474 |
| Neapolitan Sketches, | 486 |
| A Meditation, | 494 |
| On the Old Year, | 495 |
| Corali, | ib. |
| Biographical Sketch of Frank Abney Hastings, | 496 |
| [Footnotes] |
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BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCLX. OCTOBER, 1845. Vol. LVIII.
MONTESQUIEU.
Montesquieu is beyond all doubt the founder of the philosophy ofhistory. In many of its most important branches, he has carried it toa degree of perfection which has never since been surpassed. He firstlooked on human affairs with the eye of philosophic observation; hefirst sought to discover the lasting causes which influence the fateof mankind; he first traced the general laws which in every agedetermine the rise or decline of nations. Some of his conclusions werehasty; many of his analogies fanciful; but he first turned the humanmind in that direction. It is by repeatedly deviating into error thatit can alone be discovered where truth really lies: there is analchemy in the moral, not