misrepresented but by the cold, the heartless, or the hypocritical. In the De l'Allemagne, but above all in the Corinne, (perhaps the most original work, either of poetry or of prose, which has appeared in our time) a depth of feeling and reflection, and a strength of glowing and tender eloquence, such as have scarcely ever been conjoined in the person of any writer besides herself, are poured out to express the sorrow with which she had witnessed, in her own country, the deadening influence of the philosophy of persiflage, and the ardent zeal with which she contemplated the effects of the old and more generous habitudes of religious and poetical enthusiasm upon the souls and characters of men. Other romances are read, because they please the comparatively trivial faculties by portraitures of comparatively trivial feelings; but, with the exception of a few of the fine solemn passages in Don Quixote, and some things in the works of the author of the Tales of my Landlord, we recollect of nothing in that department of literature which touches the nobler and more mysterious parts of the spirit so powerfully as the representation of filial piety, and of the sentiments of Christianity in Corinne. In each and all of these works, there prevails a tone of thought and passion which cannot be supposed to have existed at any period other than a revolutionary one. It is evident from every page, that the author lived among men whose intellects had been all unhinged by some extraordinary concussion, whose feelings, opinions, principles, had all been taken out of their order, and jumbled together, to use a vulgar simile, like the stones upon a necklace, by the cutting of the string. From the earlier of her writings, it must be admitted, there appears reason to conclude, that she herself had been drawn, for a season, within the circle of the mental anarchy around her. She soon escaped from the evil, and in so doing, she parted not with the good which was to be learned from the doctrines of the times. The original principle of the French Revolution she always continued to defend, and who, excepting perhaps a Spanish monk, or an old French emigrant, will now have the boldness utterly to condemn it? But from the moment she began to consider things maturely and calmly, she never for a moment swerved from the conviction, that no revolution could be conducted well, or be expected to end well, in the hands of a set of men devoid of firmness of principle and depth of knowledge, like the demagogues of France-babblers, who talked of virtue, while they hated it, "And honour, which they did not understand." She was of the same opinion which Burke expressed concerning not the first speculative, but the first active movers of the Revolution.* She republicks knew that their business was too "The legislators who framed the antient arduous to be accomplished with no better apparatus than the metaphysicks of an under graduate, and the mathematicks and arithmetick of an exciseman. They had to do with men, and they were obliged to study human nature. They had to do with citieffects of those habits which are communizens, and they were obliged to study the cated by the circumstances of civil life. They were sensible that the operation of this second nature on the first produced a new combination; and thence arose many diversities amongst men, according to their birth, their education, their professions, the periods of their lives, their residence in towns or in the country, their several ways of acquiring and of fixing property, and acall which rendered them as it were so many cording to the quality of the property itself, different species of animals. From hence they thought themselves obliged to dispose their citizens into such classes, and to place them in such situations in the state as their peculiar habits might qualify them to fill, and to allot to them such appropriated privileges as might secure to them what their might furnish to each description such force specifick occasions required, and which as might protect it in the conflict caused by the diversity of interests, that must exist, and must contend, in all complex society: for the legislator would have been ashamed, that the coarse husbandman should well know how to assort and to use his sheep, horses, and oxen, and should have enough of common sense not to abstract and equa ing for each kind an appropriate food, care, lize them all into animals, without provid and employment; whilst he, the œconomist, disposer, and shepherd of his own kindred, subliming himself into an airy metaphysician, was resolved to know nothing of his flocks but as men in general. It is for this reason that Montesquieu observed very justly, that in their classification of the citizens, the great legislators of antiquity made the greatest display of their powers, and even your modern legislators have gone deep into soared above themselves. It is here that the negative series, and sunk even below expected not that the poverty of Plebeian heads and hearts could be covered long or effectually with the "all atoning name" of liberty. She had some idea what virtue and virtuous liberty are, and could not endure to see these sacred names taken into the polluting mouths of those whose love of change sprung only from their meanness and their envy. There may be some little danger of our speaking too much from our partialities, but we imagine that the perpetual admiration of England ́expressed in this work, is not, after all, better adapted for pleasing us, than for instructing our neighbours. The impression which had been made upon her imagination by the character and effects of our public institutions, had already, as we have hinted above, been abundantly testified in her Corinne. But in the Considerations, she has proved that her love was not blind; that the most masculine part of her nature had been consulted in its formation; and that the zeal with which she every where preached up the imitation of England, was not that of a mere wild enthusiast, but of a convinced and rational believer. In truth, the whole scope of the book is to shew, in the course of an unaffected narrative, the progress of her own thoughts -the nature of the successive impressions to which, in the midst of continual observation, her mind became their own nothing. As the first sort of legislators attended to the different kinds of citizens, and combined them into one commonwealth, the others, the metaphysical and alchemistical legislators, have taken the direct contrary course. They have attempted to confound all sorts of citizens, as well as they could, into one homogeneous mass; and then they divided this their amalgama into a number of incoherent republicks. They reduce men to loose counters, merely for the sake of simple telling, and not to figures whose power is to arise from their place in the table. The elements of their own metaphysicks might have taught them better lessons. The troll of their categorical table might have informed them that there was something else in the intellectual world besides substance and quantity. They might learn from the catechism of metaphysicks that there were eight heads more,* in every complex deliberation, which they have never thought of, though these, of all the ten, are the subject on which the skill of man can operate any thing at all." Qualitas, Relatio, Actio, Passio, Ubi, Quando, Situs, Habitus. subjected the steps, as it were, by which her first ebullient and gene rous hatred of despotism came slowly and modestly to be subdued into a temperate and wise love of that authority which is according to the laws. These things are still too near to us to be very dispassionately or very leisurely contemplated. But what a rich present to posterity! with what gratitude will the studious and reflective of after times peruse these portraits of one of the greatest and most illustrious spirits which ours has produced, presenting her in every variety of colouring and attitude, and affording, as it were, a perpetual index and commentary to the more formal chronicles which may come into their hands. Madame de Stael might, without arrogance, have concluded her work in the language of the greatest genius that ever wrote history. "The strict fidelity of my narrative may render it less amusing than it might have been. But they who read in order that they may know the past, and be wise as to the future, when similar events, as is the nature of human affairs, may happen to recur, will not on that account despise it. I have been ambitious to form a possession for eternity, rather than an amusing tale for the ears of my contemporaries." We cannot find opportunity within the limits of such a work as this, either to give a complete analysis of the book, or to supply that defect by its pages. We shall, however, venture means of very copious extracts from upon transcribing a few of the most interesting and graphical passages, and shall begin with the description of the Baroness's feelings on the first opening of the States General, on the 5th of May 1789. "I shall never forget the hour that I saw the twelve hundred deputies of France pass in procession to church to hear mass, the day before the opening of the assembly. It was a very imposing sight, and very new to the French; all the inhabitants of Versailles, and many persons attracted by curiosity from Paris, collected to see it. This new kind of authority in the state, of which neither the Το μη μυθώδες αυτων ατερπέςερον φαινεται. Όσοι δε βελησονται των γενομένων το σαφές σκοπείν, και των μελλόντων ποτε αίθις, κατα το ανθρωπινον, το8των και παραπλησιων εσεσθαι, ώφελιμα κρίνειν αυτα αρκαντως εξει. κτημα δε ες αει μαλλον η ες το παραχρήμα αγώνισμα ακέειν συγκειται. Thucyd. Lib. I. nature nor the strength was as yet known, astonished the greater part of those who had not reflected on the rights of nations. "The higher clergy had lost a portion of its influence with the public, because a number of prelates had been irregular in their moral conduct, and a still greater number employed themselves only in political affairs. The people are strict in regard to the clergy, as in regard to women; they require from both a close observance of their duties. Military fame, which is the foundation of reputation to the noblesse, as piety is to the clergy, could now only appear in the past. A long peace had deprived those noblemen who would have most desired it of the opportunity of rivalling their ancestors; and the men of the first rank in France were nothing more than illustres obscurs. The noblesse of the second rank had been equally deprived of opportunities of distinction, as the nature of the government left no opening to men of family but the military profession. The noblesse of recent origin were seen in great numbers in the ranks of the aristocracy; but the plume and sword did not become them; and people asked why they took their station with the first class in the country, merely because they had obtained an exemption from their share of the taxes; for in fact their political rights were confined to this unjust privilege. "The nobility having fallen from its splendour by its courtier habits, by its intermixture with those of recent creation, and by a long peace; the clergy possessing no longer that superiority of information which had marked it in days of barbarism, the importance of the deputies of the Tiers Etat had augmented from all these considerations. Their imposing numbers, their confident looks, their black cloaks and dresses, fixed the attention of the spectators. Literary men, merchants, and a great number of lawyers, formed the chief part of this order. Some of the nobles had got themselves elected deputies of the Tiers Etat, and of these the most conspicuous was the Comte de Mirabeau. The opinion entertained of his talents was remarkably increased by the dread excited by his immorality; yet it was that very immorality that lessened the influence which his surprising abilities ought to have obtained for him. The eye that was once fixed on his countenance was not like. ly to be soon withdrawn: his immense head of hair distinguished him from amongst the rest, and suggested the idea that, like Samson, his strength depended on it: his countenance derived expression even from its ugliness; and his whole person conveyed the idea of irregular power, but still such power as we should expect to find in a tribune of the people. "His name was as yet the only celebrated one among the six hundred deputies of the Tiers Etat; but there were a number of honourable men, and not a few that were to be dreaded. The spirit of faction began to hover over France, and was not to be over come but by wisdom or power. If, there fore, public opinion had by this time undermined power, what was to be accomplished without wisdom? "I was placed at a window near Madame de Montmorin, the wife of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and I confess I gave myself up to the liveliest hope on seeing national representatives for the first time in France. Madame de Montmorin, a woman nowise distinguished for capacity, said to me, in a decided tone, and in a way which made an impression upon me, You do wrong to rejoice; this will be the source of great misfortunes to France and to us." This unfortunate woman perished on the scaffold along with one of her sons; an other son drowned himself; her husband was massacred on the 2d of September; her eldest daughter died in the hospital of a prison; and her youngest daughter, Madame de Beaumont, an intelligent and generous creature, sunk under the pressure of grief before the age of thirty. The family of Niobe was not doomed to a more cruel fate than of this unhappy mother; one would have said that she had a presenti ment of it. "The opening of the States General took place the next day; a large hall had been hastily erected in the avenue of Versailles, to receive deputies. A number of specta tors were admitted to witness the ceremony. A platform floor was raised to receive the King's throne, the Queen's chair of state, and seats for the rest of the royal family. "The Chancellor, M. de Barentin, took his seat on the stage of this species of theatre; the three orders were, if I may so express myself, in the pit, the clergy and noblesse to the right and left, the deputies of the Tiers Etat in front. They had previously declared that they would not kneel on the entrance of the King, according to an ancient usage still practised on the last meeting of the States General. Had the deputies of the Tiers Etat put themselves on their knees in 1789, the public at large, not excepting the proudest aristocrats, would have termed the action ridiculous, that is, wholly inconsistent with the opinions of the age. "When Mirabeau appeared, a low murmur was heard throughout the assembly. He understood its meaning; but stepping along the hall to his seat with a lofty air, he seemed as if he were preparing to produce sufficient trouble in the country to confound the distinctions of esteem as well all others. M. Necker was received with bursts of applause the moment he entered; his popularity was then at its height; and the King might have derived the greatest advantage from it, by remaining stedfast in the system of which he had adopted the fundamental principles. "When the King came to seat himself on his throne in the midst of this assembly, I felt for the first time, a sensation of fear. I observed that the Queen was much agi tated; she came after the appointed time, and her colour was visibly altered. The King delivered his discourse in his usual unaffected manner; but the looks of the deputies were expressive of more energy than that of the Monarch, and this contrast was disquieting at a time, when, nothing being as yet settled, strength was requisite to both sides. The speeches of the King, the Chancellor, and M. Necker, all pointed to the re-instatement of the finances. That of M. Necker contained a view of all the improvements of which the administration was capaable; but he hardly touched on constitutional questions; and confining himself to cautioning the assembly against the precipitation of which it was too susceptible, he made use of a phrase which has since passed into a proverb, Ne soyez pas envieux du temps, do not expect to do at once that which can be accomplished only by time.' Madame de Stael dwells, with not a little of the partiality of a first love, on the beneficial effects produced by the labours of the meeting thus assembled. Had they been a little more temperate in their measures; above all, had they avoided the fatal sin of taking away the church lands in the spirit not of equity but of cruelty, there can be no doubt that the services rendered to the main body of the people, by the decrees of the Constitutional Assembly, the only one of all the revolutionary meetings where the nation could be said to be represented, were great and admirable. The introduction of a free press, and of a criminal jurisprudence, more nearly resembling the model of England; the abolition of many odious and unequal taxes; and of the absurd privileges which were claimed, not only by the old legitimate noblesse of France, but by a swarm of novi homines, who owed their envious elevation to all the arts of money-making, court intrigue, and civil profligacy,-these alone, had they done nothing more, might have been services sufficient to entitle the members of that memorable senate to the everlasting gratitude of their countrymen. "On all sides," says Madame de Stael, were diffused life, emulation, and intelligence; there was a France instead of a capital, a capital instead of a court. The voice of the people, so long called the voice of God, was at last consulted by government; and it would have supplied a wise rule of guidance, had not, as we are doomed to repeat, the Constitutional Assembly proceeded with too much precipitation in its reform from the very commencement of its power; and had it not soon fallen into the hands of factious men, who, having nothing more to reap in the field of beneficence, endeavoured to excite mischief, that they might enter on a new career.' The whole history of the Assemblies, down to the death of Mirabeau, and those other remarkable occurences which characterised the close of the year 1791; the emigration of the noblesse; the opening of the revolutionary war, and overthrow of the monarchy; all that series of events which terminated in the trial and death of the King, are depicted in a manner equally abounding in liveliness and in feeling. For the details we refer to the work itself, but we must extract the very original chapter on the comparative characters of Charles I. and Louis XVI., with which she pauses over the catastrophe to which she has conducted us. 66 Many persons have attributed the disasters of France to the weakness of the character of Louis XVI.; and it has been continually repeated, that his stooping to recognise the principles of liberty was one of the essential causes of the Revolution. It seems to me then a matter of curiosity, to show to those, who believe that in France, at this crisis, such or such a man would have sufficed to have prevented every thing; or, that the adoption of such or such a resolution would have arrested the progress of events;-it seems, I say, a matter of curiosity to show them, that the conduct of Charles I. was, in all respects, the converse of that of Louis XVI., and that, neverthe less, two opposite systems brought about the same catastrophe; so irresistible is the progress of revolutions caused by the opinion of the majority. "James I., the father of Charles, said 'that men might form an opinion on the conduct of kings, since they freely allowed themselves to scrutinize the decrees of Providence; but that their power could no more be called in question than that of God.' Charles I. had been educated in these maxims; and he regarded as a measure equally inconsistent with duty, and with policy, every concession made by the royal authority. Louis XVI., a hundred and fifty years later, was modified by the age in which he lived; the doctrine of passive obedience, which was still received in England in the time of Charles, was no longer maintained even by the clergy of France in 1789. The English parliament had existed from time immemorial; and although it was not irrevocably decided that its consent was necessary for taxation, yet it was customary to ask its sanction. But as it granted subsidies for several years in anticipation, the King of England was not, as now, under the necessity of assembling it annually; and very frequently taxes were continued without having been renewed by the votes of the national representatives. The parliament, however, on all occasions, protested against this abuse; and upon this ground commenced the quarrel between the Commons and Charles I. He was reproached with two taxes which he levied without the assent of the nation. Irritated by this reproach, he ordered, in pursuance of the constitutional right vested in him, that the parliament should be dissolved; and twelve years elapsed before he called another; an interruption almost unparalleled in the history of England. The quarrel of Louis XVI. began, like that of Charles I., by financial embarrassments; and it is always these embarrassments that render kings dependant upon their people; but Louis XVI. assembled the States General, which, for nearly two centuries, had been almost forgotten in France. "Louis XIV. had suppressed even the remonstrances of the parliament of Paris, the only privilege left to that body, when he registered the bursal edicts. Henry VIII. of England had caused his proclamations to be received as laws. Thus then, both Charles and Louis might consider themselves as inheriting unlimited power; but with this difference, that the people of Eng. land always relied, and with reason, upon the past to reclaim their rights, while the French demanded something entirely new, since the convocation of the States General was not prescribed by any law. Louis XVI., according to the constitution or the non-constitution of France, was not under any obligation to assemble the States General; Charles I., in omitting for twelve years to convoke the English parliament, violated privileges which had been long recognized. 66 During the twelve years' suspension of the parliament under Charles, the StarChamber, an irregular tribunal which executed the will of the English Monarch, exercised every imaginable species of rigour. Prynne was sentenced to lose his ears for having written, according to the tenets of the puritans, against plays and against hierarchy. Allison and Robins endured the same punishment, because they expressed an opinion different from that of the Archbishop of York; Lilburne was exposed on the pillory, inhumanly scourged, and gagged, because his courageous complaints produced an effect upon the people. Williams, a bishop, underwent a similar punishment. The most cruel tortures were inflicted upon those who refused to pay the taxes imposed by a mere proclamation of the King; in a multitudinous variety of cases ruinous fines were levied on individuals by the same StarChamber; but, in general, it was against the liberty of the press that the utmost violence was displayed. Louis XVI. made scarcely any use of the arbitrary measure of lettres de cachet for the purpose of exile or VOL. III. imprisonment; no one act of tyranny can be laid to his charge; and, far from restraining the liberty of the press, it was the Archbishop of Sens, the King's prime minister, who, in the name of his Majesty, invited all writers to make known their opinions upon the form and the manner of assembling the States General. "The Protestant religion was established in England; but as the church of England recognised the king as its head, Charles I. had certainly much more influence over his church than Louis had over that of France. The English clergy, under the guidance of Laud, although Protestant, was not only in all respects more independent, but more rigid than the French clergy; for the philosophic spirit had gained a footing among some of the leaders of the Gallican church; and Laud was more decidedly orthodox than the Cardinal de Rohan, the principal bishop of France. The ecclesiastical authority and the hierarchy were supported by Charles with extreme severity. The greater part of the cruel sentences, which disgraced the Star-Chamber, had for their object the enforcing of respect for the clergy. That of France seldom defended itself, and never found defenders in others: both were equally crushed by the Revolution. "The English nobility did not resort to the pernicious measure of emigration, nor to the still more pernicious measure of calling in foreigners: they encircled the throne with constancy, and combatted on the side of the King during the civil war. The principles of philosophy, which were in vogue in France at the commencement of the Revolution, excited a great number of the nobles themselves to turn their own privileges into ridicule. The spirit of the seventeenth century did not prompt the English nobility to doubt the validity of their own rights. The Star-Chamber punished with extreme severity some persons who had ventured to ridicule certain lords. Pleasantry is never interdicted to the French. The nobles of England were grave and serious, while those of France were agreeable triflers; and yet both the one and the other were alike despoiled of their privileges; and, widely as they differed in all their measures of defence, they were strikingly assimilated in their ruin. "It has often been said, that the great influence of Paris over the rest of France, was one of the causes of the Revolution. London never obtained the same ascendant over England, because the principal English nobility lived much more in the provinces than those of France. Lastly, it has been pretended, that the prime minister of Louis XVI., M. Necker, was swayed by republican principles, and that such a man as Cardinal Richelieu might have prevented the Revolution. The Earl of Strafford, the favourite minister of Charles I. was of a firm, and even despotic character; he possessed one advantage over Cardinal Richelieu, that 4 M |