OR Journal of Belles Lettres, Politics and Fashion. NO. XIX. POLITE LITERATURE. OF DRAMATIC COMPOSITION. MR. EDITOR, SATURDAY, MAY 31, 1817. send, quences, PRICE 1s. Should this gallant captain make his that the landlord, unwilling to resign his The very general diffusion of literary knowledge which has taken place of late years, has made the public taste perhaps fastidious in its decisions on the merits of all species of talent; but more especially on that of modern dramatists. Few, indeed, would be hardy enough to affirm, that a decay of this particular talent, amounting almost to annihilation, is not observable: the lyre of Shakspeare is still mute, and still slumbers unconscious of the master-hand which shall again awaken the tones of inspiration; the wit of Congreve has expired with the evanescent brilliancy of sudden flame; the This is well followed by his friend humour of Steele is mute as the tongue Jachimo, (whose name seems also a he once prostituted to party; and the more modern Italian baptism than the vivacity of Sheridan slumbers in the grave era in which he speaks,) observing to which contains his ashes! But while we Imogen, that he, as the factor for 12 mourn departed excellence, let us not be noble Romans who had clubbed for a unjust to living worth and in grieving piece of subscription plate to be presentfor what has past away, let us remembered to the Emperor, had travelled into that the only means of preserving what France to buy that which could not be has not, is to cherish what we have. found in Rome! In another scene, "Enter Talent is timid, and is to be won by pro-a Dutchman and a Frenchman:" and in tection: Genius is capricious, and must the last act, Cornelius informs us that the be allured by patronage. While, there- Queen was accustomed to amuse herself fore, at the tribunal of criticism, modern by poisoning rats and cats. But few ability must yield the palm of excellence examples could be selected which would in energy and grandeur, to the early vie in pedantry with that of Marcus writers, the praises allotted to talent of Andronicus, who calls out, an inferior order must be awarded to the moderns. Accuracy, good taste, judgment and correctness,-though they cannot atone for the loss of sterling thought and vigorous expression, are qualities agreeable to Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths, "That we may hew his limbs; and on a pile, "Ad manes fratrum,' sacrifice his flesh!" In King Lear, act 3d, the fool anti- "When Brewers mar their malt with water"— I shall shortly take an opportunity of B. ON TASTE IN FEMALE DRESS. "Dress is the natural finish of beauty. Withont dress, a handsome woman is a gem, but a gem that is not set." "The sacred few whose just applause is fame," and more likely to please the many : they are qualities in which the moderns are certainly masters. It is astonishing, indeed, that in an age like that of Queen I am an old man now, Mr. Editor; Elizabeth, which boasted its acquaintLETTERS ON IRELAND. but I have loved the ladies dearly all the ance with the elegant classics, and was To the Editor of the Literary Gazette. days of my life; and, though "the high certainly well versed in the learning of the SIR,-Your correspondent "Hibernicus," in blood" no longer runs "frolic through schools, such gross anachronisms, such your 18th number, has endeavoured to prove, absurd violations of time, place and his-that the causes of the present distresses in my veins"-though the frost of age has "silvered o'er my head "-my attachtory as abound in many of the sublimest| Ireland are different to what they are gene dramas of that day, should ever have rally supposed to be-but it is to be regretted, ment to the better sex remains pure and been tolerated. A Morning Paper re- that his manner of explaining himself, leaves undiminished, and, thank heaven, my cently remarked, on the revival of Beau- his reader so much in the dark, as to give perception of physical and moral beauty mont and Fletcher's Humourous Lieu- rise to the idea, that the writer entertained is still in its meridian of power. I look contrary opinions on the same subject, in back upon the of years my youth-upon tenant,' that the " bouncing anachron- different parts of his paper. ism" of Demetrius entering with a "cockIn the first place, and as a chief cause of the prime of my manhood-when the ed pistol," had been very wisely corrected. grievance, your correspondent states a fact-loveliest and the best of women was the solace of my heart, with a dear, a sooth- more intimate acquaintance, find much in our power to present our readers with ing delight, which the wealth of worlds could not purchase. many are the changes of the times, and of manners, that I have observed. Connected, in some measure, with my naturally invincible admiration of the sex, has been an attention to their various styles of personal decoration; and though, in some respects, I entertain a perfectly philosophical contempt of dress, I will not shrink from the avowal, that, in the contemplation of a beautiful woman, elegantly and tastefully attired, I have, at all times, enjoyed a pleasure of no vulgar cast. Time was, when the waist of a span, in her disposition, mind, and manner, to I have already remarked, that the love an amusing extract from one of the proof The Sixty-five years have not rolled regardless over my head. Within that period -a little eternity in prospective, but scarcely more than a point in the past and ochre; see the native of the South literary circles at Paris, that the greatest Sea Islands, gaily bedight in shells, and revolution which had taken place in beads, and feathers, and ferruginous pen- their literature, since the reign of Louis dants in her ears and nose; and, to come XIV., has occurred in the taste, talent, nearer home, observe the country wench, and style of their female writers. They tricked out in flaring ribbons, and rival- still speak with rapture of the facility, ing the rainbow in the number and va- the abandonnement, the grace, of the riety, if not in the beauty, of its colors. compositions of the La Fayettes, the Here is the love of dress in all its native Sevignés, the Caylus's; and oppose them force; but where is the chastening hand in decided superiority to the de Staëls, of taste, the nice perception of the beau- the Cottins, the Genlis's, and the Souzas. tiful and correct? The British fair, But the great claim to that originality of thanks to the powder-tax, have long re-invention and combination, which constilinquished the practice of kneading up tutes the essence of genius, belongs extheir tresses into dough, by the admix-clusively to the modern writers. "Small by degrees, and beautifully less," ture of flour and fat-a practice as odious best compositions of the female wits of was the summit of female ambition; as that of the Hottentots; for what is the "beau siécle," exhibited but the art when the celebrated Duchess of Devon. there more offensive or ridiculous in red of transferring the elegant gossipry, so shire, whose zone was exactly the cir- dust and grease, than in white dust and eternally practised in their salons, to cumference of an orange and a halt, ex-grease?-but they still retain that relic of their letters, and adopting in their written cited the envy of the whole world of barbarism, the wearing ear-rings. Why accounts of the anecdotes, incidents, fashion; but this, and numberless other should they not, like some of their sable slanders, intrigues, and tracasseries of the absurdities, have been hurried down the sisters, adorn their olfactory organs in day, the same epigrammatic point and stream of oblivion, never more, it is the same chaste and simple style ?-The facility of expression, which belong to hoped, to intrude into the regions of short petticoats, which now so frequently the genius of their language, and which taste. Peaked stomachers, fortification enable the Bond-Street lounger to expa- have at all times been the study, the bosoms, monstrous craws, cork hips, tiate on the color of his mistress's garters, charm, and the habit of their converand protuberant pads, have, in succes-are doubtlessly an importation from that sation. sion, been consigned to the "family land where Vice reigns triumphant- The life of such a woman as Madame vault of all the Capulets;" and notwith- where Modesty has long forgotten to de Sevigné, was passed in social little standing its faults, I must be permitted blush. Still are we doomed to exclaim, circles, in eternal visits, and in seeking, to consider the present age as greatly su-, France, whose edicts govern dress and meat, hearing, circulating, and transcribing all perior to many that are past. Thy victor, Britain, bends beneath thy feet!" not equally indecent, mode of hooping duties, though they had many social ties. The almost equally barbarous, though Women of rank had then no domestic that was passing in the city or the court. the dresses and pelisses round, like so Their infants were nursed by hirelings, eastward of Temple-Bar. The wearers their husbands lived with the army or the many beer-barrels, originated, I presume, their children were reared in convents, of these dresses always remind me of brewers' wives and daughters, hanging which exercise so powerful an operation court, and those profounder feelings, out the signs of their family trade. We nature, of the correct and harmonious in the dominions of fashion; why should we the scale of modern literature was then of taste, by a sense of the beautiful in have reformed many of these abuses in upon female intellect, remained cold and art. Thus it will generally be seen, that the mind which is most highly cultivated, see my dear and naturally-fascinating the dead languages. not reform them all? I would willingly circumscribed, and few women studied will be most successful in the art of per- countrywomen as lovely as nature and sonal decoration, provided its attention of their mind, therefore, was confined her attendant graces designed that they be directed, or attracted towards that should appear. With this view, I will and levelled to the combination and reciLord Chesterfield declared, that endeavour, in another brief epistle, to tation of the events, which took place in he could not help forming some opinion offer some suggestions, which, I flatter the most frivolous, intriguing, but polished the style of his dress. Such a criterion is myself, your fair readers will not deem by no means infallible; yet I am inclined altogether undeserving of attention. In by no means infallible; yet I am inclined the interim, I subscribe myself, to think, that the feeling, or sentimentespecially with respect to the opposite -sex-is more general than might be at The love of dress is natural to woman. This has been seen, and attested, in all ages and in all countries of the world, in the most savage as well as in the most polished states. It is a laudable, a useful, an interesting propensity; but it requires to be chastened and regulated by the hand point. of a man's sense, and character, from Yours, &c. SENEX. LADY MORGAN'S FRANCE. The whole power society, that ever existed. Their style was brilliant, playful, and elegant; and it was eminently, perhaps exclusively, calculated to " éterniser la bagatelle." Speaking of the talents of Mesdames de Stael and de Genlis, a French critic of the first suspected; and, perhaps, we sel- This work, which has long been im-old school observed to me, "Pour ces femdom, if ever, meet with a female, whose patiently expected, will be published in a mes là, elles se sont fait une imagination et une general style of dress is chaste, elegant, few days at Paris as well as London. In et l'autre, de quoi faire trois ou quatre hommes littérature viriles.→→Madame, il y a, dans l'une and appropriate, that we do not, on a the mean time, we are happy to have it d'esprit." When, however, they abandoned facts quiries, and political and social fermenta-la religion!" or that "elle s'était mise en for fiction, they wholly failed in their tion, its objects are naturally grand, its retraite dans une société de Capucines."-attempt; and in the world of invention scope vast, its efforts vigorous: It has I had despaired therefore of seeing a there is, perhaps, nothing so cold, cum- the energy of inspiration, and its disor-person, out of whose works I had been brous, and wearisome, so out of the line der. There is in the character of educated, and whose name and writings of social nature, and yet so remote from Madame de Stael's compositions, some were intimately connected with all my the fairy regions of fancy, as the ro- thing of the Delphic priestess. Some- earliest associations of books and literamances of Mademoiselle Scuderie, and times mystic, not always intelligible, we ture: when an invitation from this dis the novels of Madame La Fayette. They still blame the god rather than the ora- tinguished writer herself brought me at soon fell by their own ponderous weight, cle; and wish perhaps that she were less once to her retreat, in her convent of even in an age when they had novelty to inspired, or we more intelligent. the Carmelites-an order recently res sustain them, and have now long been While other writers (both male and fe-tored with more than its original severity, known by name only. male) in France have turned with every and within whose wall, Madame de Geu» The two most celebrated female wri-breeze, that fluttered in the political beis has retired. As I drove "aux Carmes,” ters of France, Madame de Genlis and misphere, Madame de Stael has steadily it is difficult to say, whether Madame de Madame de Stael, mark successively the proceeded in the magnificent march of Genlis or Madame de La Vallière was progress of female intellect, and the genius, governed by principle: and her uppermost in my imagination. - Adjoinscope given by circumstances to female opinious, while they are supported by all ing to the gloomy and monastic structure, talent in that country. The works of the force of female enthusiasm, derive an which incloses the Carmelite suterhood, Madame de Genlis form a sort of con- additional weight from the masculine in barriers which even royalty is no necting link between those women, who independence and steadiness of their ad- longer permitted to pass) stands a small wrote at the latter end of Louis the vocate. editice appropriated to the lay guest of XIVth's day, and those who have ap I had to lament that Madame de Stael this silent and solitary retreat. The peared since the revolution. The found had left France, at the moment when I pretty garden belonging exclusively to ress of a new genus of composition in entered it; and I was tantalized by invi. this wing of the convent, is only divided her own language, her domestic stories tations, which proposed my meeting her from its great garden by a low wall, and are a deviation from the grave formalities at the house of a mutual friend, at the it admits at its extremity the melancholy of the early French novel; and stand time when imperious circumstances view of a small chapel or oratory, fatally equally free from the licentious liberties obliged me to return to Ireland. I thus distinguished by the murder of the bishops of the new, a witty but an immoral was prevented from seeing one of the and priests, imprisoned there during the school, founded by the Marivaux, the most distinguished women of the age, reign of Robespierre. Madame de GenLouvets, and the Leclos. M. de Genlis, from whose works I had received infinite is received me with a kindness, a corif not the first who made works of imagi-pleasure, and (as a woman, I may add diality, that had all the naiveté and freshnation the vehicle of education, was at infinite pride. Her character was un-ness of youthful feeling, and youthful least the earliest of those, who intro- formly described by her friends to me vivacity. There was nothing of age in duced instruction and science into tales as largely partaking of a disposition her address or conversation; and vigour, of sentiment and passion; and the erudi whose kindness knew no bounds; and of animation, a tone of decision, a rapidity tion which occasionally gleams through feelings which lent themselves, in ready her pages, has been thought to do the sympathy, to every claim of friendship, honours of the head, to the exclusion and every call of benevolence. Among of the interests of the heart: while her those, who know her well, the splendor pare and polished style, flowing and of her reputation seems sunk in the popusmooth as it is, stands accused by the larity of her character; and “ c'est une severity of French criticism of approach excellente personne," "c'est un bon en ing to the studied elegance and cold fast," were epithets of praise constantly precision of a professed rhetorician. It lavished on one, who has so many more may, however, be said with great truth, brilhant claims to celebrity.' that none perhaps ever wrote so well, who wrote so much; or has ever blended so few faults with so many merits of style and composition. Madame de Geulis Just held that place in society from her rank, her fashion, her political tendeneves, and literary successes, which was most calculated to excite against her a bost of enemies. Had she been more obscure as a woman, she would have been less severely treated as an auchor. Malame de Genlis was at Paris, when I arrived there; but I was told on every side, that she had retired from the world; that she was visible alike to friends and strangers.-That," elle s'était jetée dans of utterance, spoke the full possession of every feeling and every faculty: and I found her in the midst of occupations and pursuits, which might startle the industry of youth to undertake or to accomplish. When I entered her apartment, she was painting flowers in a book, which she called her “herbier sacré," in which she was copying all the plants mentioned in the Bible. She showed me another volume, which she had just finished, fuil of trophies and tasteful devices, which she called herbier de reconnaissance, But I have but hittle time for such le amusements," said Madame de Geulis. She was, in fact, then engaged in abridg ing some ponderous tomes of French Mémoires, in writing her “Journal de la Jeunesse, and in preparing for the press her new novel "La Battuécas," which she has since given to the world. Both Madame de Starl and Madame de Gets appeared to me to be rather unpopular with the royalists and ultras · the one, for her supposed republican principles; the other, for the part she took in the early period of the re valaton, Or Madame de Stael, they constantly said to me, “ C'est de l'éloquence, si vous voulez. Her harp was nevertheless well strung ceprofunt c'est un phranéré que Madame de S. 7 of Madame de Gen'" Pour son style, est and tuned; her piano forte covered with d'une pureté vén fuerte et élégante, mais si x'y a new music, and when I gave her her inte, rien de naturel des are remens, que les enfans! to play for me, it did not require the The ** Battuteur,” of Madame de Genlis must, however, by this, have reconciled her to the drawing up a single string. All was mox inveterate front of legitimacy, church, energy and occupation. It was imponible not to make some observation un The genins of Madame de Staël be longs to the day and age in which it dawned, and by which it was nurtured. It partakes of their boldness and their aspirations, their freedom and their force. Fostered amidst philosoplncal en-state, and the king of Spain! solace of my heart, with a dear, a sooth- more intimate acquaintance, find much in our power to present our readers with ing delight, which the wealth of worlds could not purchase. span, in her disposition, mind, and manner, to I have already remarked, that the love an amusing extract from one of the proof Sixty-five years have not rolled regardless over my head. Within that period a little eternity in prospective, but scarcely more than a point in the past and ochre; see the native of the South literary circles at Paris, that the greatest many are the changes of the times, and Sea Islands, gaily bedight in shells, and revolution which had taken place in of manners, that I have observed. Con- beads, and feathers, and ferruginous pen- their literature, since the reign of Louis nected, in some measure, with my natu- dants in her ears and nose; and, to come XIV., has occurred in the taste, talent, rally invincible admiration of the sex, nearer home, observe the country wench, and style of their female writers. They has been an attention to their various tricked out in flaring ribbons, and rival- still speak with rapture of the facility, styles of personal decoration; and though, ing the rainbow in the number and va- the abandonnement, the grace, of the in some respects, I entertain a perfectly riety, if not in the beauty, of its colors. compositions of the La Fayettes, the philosophical contempt of dress, I will Here is the love of dress in all its native Sevignés, the Caylus's; and oppose them not shrink from the avowal, that, in the force; but where is the chastening hand in decided superiority to the de Staëls, contemplation of a beautiful woman, ele- of taste, the nice perception of the beau- the Cottins, the Genlis's, and the Souzas. gantly and tastefully attired, I have, at tiful and correct? The British fair, But the great claim to that originality of all times, enjoyed a pleasure of no vulgar thanks to the powder-tax, have long re-invention and combination, which consticast. Time was, when the waist of a linquished the practice of kneading up tutes the essence of genius, belongs extheir tresses into dough, by the admix-clusively to the modern writers. The "Small by degrees, and beautifully less," ture of flour and fat-a practice as odious best compositions of the female wits of was the summit of female ambition; as that of the Hottentots; for what is the "beau siécle," exhibited but the art when the celebrated Duchess of Devon- there more offensive or ridiculous in red of transferring the elegant gossipry, so shire, whose zone was exactly the cir- dust and grease, than in white dust and eternally practised in their salons, to cumference of an orange and a halt, ex-grease?-but they still retain that relic of their letters, and adopting in their written cited the envy of the whole world of barbarism, the wearing ear-rings. Why accounts of the anecdotes, incidents, fashion; but this, and numberless other should they not, like some of their sable slanders, intrigues, and tracasseries of the absurdities, have been hurried down the sisters, adorn their olfactory organs in day, the same epigrammatic point and stream of oblivion, never more, it is the same chaste and simple style ?-The facility of expression, which belong to hoped, to intrude into the regions of short petticoats, which now so frequently the genius of their language, and which taste. Peaked stomachers, fortification enable the Bond-Street lounger to expa- have at all times been the study, the bosoms, monstrous craws, cork hips, tiate on the color of his mistress's garters, charm, and the habit of their converand protuberant pads, have, in succes- are doubtlessly an importation from that sation. sion, been consigned to the family land where Vice reigns triumphant- The life of such a woman as Madame vault of all the Capulets;" and notwith- where Modesty has long forgotten to de Sevigné, was passed in social little standing its faults, I must be permitted blush. Still are we doomed to exclaim, circles, in eternal visits, and in seeking, to consider the present age as greatly su "O, France, whose edicts govern dress and meat, hearing, circulating, and transcribing all perior to many that are past. Thy victor, Britain, bends beneath thy feet!" The almost equally barbarous, though Women of rank had then no domestic that was passing in the city or the court. The love of dress is natural to woman. not equally indecent, mode of hooping duties, though they had many social ties. This has been seen, and attested, in all ages the dresses and pelisses round, like so Their infants were nursed by hirelings, and in all countries of the world, in the most savage as well as in the most polished eastward of Temple-Bar. The wearers their husbands lived with the army or the many beer-barrels, originated, I presume, their children were reared in convents, states. It is a laudable, a useful, an of these dresses always remind me of interesting propensity; but it requires to brewers' wives and daughters, hanging which exercise so powerful an operation court, and those profounder feelings, be chastened and regulated by the hand of taste, by a sense of the beautiful in out the signs of their family trade. We nature, of the correct and harmonious in the dominions of fashion; why should we the scale of modern literature was then have reformed many of these abuses in upon female intellect, remained cold and undeveloped. They read little, because art. Thus it will generally be seen, that not reform them all? I would willingly circumscribed, and few women studied the mind which is most highly cultivated, see my dear and naturally-fascinating the dead languages. will be most successful in the art of per-countrywomen as lovely as nature and The whole power sonal decoration, provided its attention her attendant graces designed that they of their mind, therefore, was confined be directed, or attracted towards that should appear. With this view, I will and levelled to the combination and reciLord Chesterfield declared, that endeavour, in another brief epistle, to/tation of the events, which took place in the most frivolous, intriguing, but polished society, that ever existed. Their style was brilliant, playful, and elegant; and it was eminently, perhaps exclusively, calculated to "éterniser la bagatelle.” ' point. the style of his dress. Such a criterion is he could not help forming some opinion offer some suggestions, which, I flatter Yours, &c. SENEX. LADY MORGAN'S FRANCE. I Speaking of the talents of Mesdames de Staël and de Genlis, a French critic of the mes là, elles se sont fait une imagination et une first suspected; and, perhaps, we sel- This work, which has long been im- old school observed to me," Pour ces fem dom, if ever, meet with a female, whose patiently expected, will be published in a littérature virites.+Madame, il y a, dans l'une general style of dress is chaste, elegant, few days at Paris as well as London. In et autre, de quoi faire trois ou quatre hommes and appropriate, that we do not, on a the mean time, we are happy to have it d'esprit." When, however, they abandoned facts quiries, and political and social fermenta- la religion!" or that "elle s'était mise en for fiction, they wholly failed in their tion, its objects are naturally grand, its retraite dans une société de Capucines.”attempt; and in the world of invention scope vast, its efforts vigorous: It has I had despaired therefore of seeing a there is, perhaps, nothing so cold, cum- the energy of inspiration, and its disor- person, out of whose works I had been brous, and wearisome, so out of the line der. There is in the character of educated, and whose name and writings of social nature, and yet so remote from Madame de Staël's compositions, some- were intimately connected with all my the fairy regions of fancy, as the ro- thing of the Delphic priestess. Some- earliest associations of books and literamances of Mademoiselle Scuderie, and times mystic, not always intelligible, we ture; when an invitation from this disthe novels of Madame La Fayette. They still blame the god rather than the ora- tinguished writer herself brought me at soon fell by their own ponderous weight, cle; and wish perhaps that she were less once to her retreat, in her convent of even in an age when they had novelty to inspired, or we more intelligent. the Carmelites-an order recently ressustain them, and have now long been While other writers (both male and fe- tored with more than its original severity, known by name only. male) in France have turned with every and within whose walls Madame de GenThe two most celebrated female wri-breeze, that fluttered in the political helis has retired. As I drove "aux Carmes," ters of France, Madame de Genlis and misphere, Madame de Staël has steadily it is difficult to say, whether Madame de Madame de Staël, mark successively the proceeded in the magnificent march of Genlis or Madame de La Vallière was progress of female intellect, and the genius, governed by principle: and her uppermost in my imagination.—Adjoinscope given by circumstances to female opinious, while they are supported by all ing to the gloomy and monastic structure, talent in that country. The works of the force of female enthusiasm, derive an which incloses the Carmelite sisterhood, Madame de Genlis form a sort of con- additional weight from the masculine (in barriers which even royalty is no necting link between those women, who independence and steadiness of their ad- longer permitted to pass) stands a small wrote at the latter end of Louis the vocate. editice appropriated to the lay-guest of XIVth's day, and those who have ap- I had to lament that Madame de Staël this silent and solitary retreat. The peared since the revolution. The found- had left France, at the moment when I pretty garden belonging exclusively to ress of a new genus of composition in entered it; and I was tantalized by invi- this wing of the convent, is only divided her own language, her domestic stories tations, which proposed my meeting her from its great garden by a low wall, and are a deviation from the grave formalities at the house of a mutual friend, at the it admits at its extremity the melancholy of the early French novel; and stand time when imperious circumstances view of a small chapel or oratory, fatally equally free from the licentious liberties obliged me to return to Ireland. I thus distinguished by the murder of the bishops of the new, a witty but an immoral was prevented from seeing one of the and priests, imprisoned there during the school, founded by the Marivaux, the most distinguished women of the age, reign of Robespierre. Madame de GenLouvets, and the Leclos. M. de Genlis, from whose works I had received infinite lis received me with a kindness, a corif not the first who made works of imagi- pleasure, and (as a woman, I may add) diality, that had all the naiveté and freshnation the vehicle of education, was at infinite pride. Her character was uni-ness of youthful feeling, and youthful least the earliest of those, who intro- formly described by her friends to me vivacity. There was nothing of age in duced instruction and science into tales as largely partaking of a disposition her address or conversation; and vigour, of sentiment and passion; and the erudi- whose kindness knew no bounds; and of animation, a tone of decision, a rapidity tion which occasionally gleams through feelings which lent themselves, in ready of utterance, spoke the full possession of her pages, has been thought to do the sympathy, to every claim of friendship, every feeling and every faculty and I honours of the head, to the exclusion and every call of benevolence.-Among found her in the midst of occupations and of the interests of the heart: while her those, who know her well, the splendor pursuits, which might startle the industry pure and polished style, flowing and of her reputation seems sunk in the popu- of youth to undertake or to accomplish. smooth as it is, stands accused by the larity of her character; and "c'est une severity of French criticism of approach excellente personne," c'est un bon ening to the studied elegance and cold fant," were epithets of praise constantly precision of a professed rhetorician. It lavished on one, who has so many more may, however, be said with great truth, brilliant claims to celebrity.' that none perhaps ever wrote so well, Madame de Genlis was at Paris, when volume, which she had just finished, full who wrote so much; or has ever blended I arrived there; but I was told on every of trophies and tasteful devices, which so few faults with so many merits of style side, that she had retired from the world; she called l'herbier de reconnaissance. and composition. Madame de Genlis that she was invisible alike to friends and "But I have but little time for such idle just held that place in society from her strangers.-That, " elle s'était jetée dans amusements," said Madame de Genlis, rank, her fashion, her political tendenShe was, in fact, then engaged in abridgcies, and literary successes, which was ing some ponderous tomes of French most calculated to excite against her a Mémoires, in writing her "Journal de la bost of enemies. Had she been more Jeunesse," and in preparing for the press obscure as a woman, she would have her new novel "Les Battuécas," which been less severely treated as an she has since given to the world. thor. au 'Both Madame de Staël and Madame de with the royalists and ultras: the one, for her Genlis appeared to me to be rather unpopular supposed republican principles; the other, for the part she took in the early period of the revolution. Of Madame de Staël, they constantly said to me," C'est de l'éloquence, si vous voulez ; cependant c'est une phrasière que Madame de S.!" The genius of Madame de Staël be- Of Madame de Genlis," Pour son style, c'est longs to the day and age in which it d'une pureté très facile et élégante, mais il n'y dawned, and by which it was nurtured, rien de naturel dans ses romans, que les enfans!" It partakes of their boldness and their The Batturcus," of Madame de Genlis must, aspirations, their freedom and their however, by this, have reconciled her to the force. Fostered amidst philosophical en-state, and the king of Spain ! ⠀ most inveterate friends of legitimacy, church, a When I entered her apartment, she was painting flowers in a book, which she called her "herbier sacré," in which she was copying all the plants mentioned in the Bible. She showed me another Her harp was nevertheless well strung and tuned; her piano-forte covered with new music, and when I gave her her lute, to play for me, it did not require the drawing up a single string. All was energy and occupation. It was impossible not to make some observation on |