dued, that there is no instance in their history of any man whose intellects were disordered by disappointment. But emotions that were rarely felt, and still more rarely displayed, were not likely to be either understood or investigated: hence, in part, their want of philosophic writings. To philosophise on mind would have been like writing on anatomy without the use of a skeleton or a dissecting knife. This defect runs through all their compositions. Even their histories, with the exception of Tacitus, who lived in an age more favourable to reflection and sentiment, however distinguished for painting, spirit, and eloquence, were deficient in the development of mind, in those analytical observations, which render history the "school of princes." The calamities of the times which succeeded the Augustan age were calculated to form men to habits of reflection and seriousness, to create such writers as Tacitus, Juvenal, Quinctilian, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. Standing as they did amidst the ruins of their country, they could scarcely fail to moralise upon the causes of decay, and to denounce and stigmatise its authors. The style, indeed, of some of these latter writers was inferior to that of their predecessors. The severity of the times denied that sort of communion to men of letters which is necessary to establish a proper standard of literature. Writing also upon preoccupied topics, they were tempted to secure novelty by a measure of artifice and affectation. They recorded strange events, and Scourged extravagant crimes; and the state of mind in which men describe and chastise gross delinquencies is not likely to dictate expressions either refined or correct. These chapters conclude with a masterly investigation of some of the causes which produced the decay, the guilt, and the calamities of imperial Rome. The author comforts us by an assurance, that her fall supplies no foundation for the mournful aphorism that states have a maximum at which decay necessarily commences; and that modern empires are exempt from most of the evils which issued in the ruin of Rome.

She thus briefly enumerates some of these causes.

"The state of slavery, which exempted one class of men from the performance of any moral duty; the small supply of means which could promote general instruction; the diversity of philosophical sects, which threw the minds of men into incertitude with respect to what was just or unjust; the indifference relative to suffering and death, an indifference which owed its birth to courage, but which terminated by exhausting the natural sources of sympathy:-these were the several sources of that savage cruelty which existed among the Romans." (P. 200.)

Hitherto Madame de Staël has found little difficulty in maintain

ing the progress of literature, if not the progressive improvement of mankind. But the title of the ensuing chapter, “The Invasion of the Northern Nations," made us tremble for her hypothesis. Gloomy as appears the evening of Roman grandeur, cau' it be compared with the midnight of Northern invasion-with that period of mental ruin, which has been emphatically called the dark ages? Have historians and poets siglied unjustly over the prostrate schools and temples of Rome? Scarcely any thing could be conceived more difficult of demonstration; and yet the author has neither shrunk from the enterprize nor altogether failed of success. As this particular chapter calls our attention to topics of the very highest interest, we shall not apologise for making pretty copious extracts from the work.

In the first place let our readers take the following spirited description of the state of the Eastern empire, at the period of the Northern invasion.

"The Roman character, so celebrated for national pride and political institutions, was totally extinct: the inhabitants of Italy were disgusted with the very idea of glory; they were entirely devoted to voluptuousness and sensuality; they acknowledged plurality of gods, and ordained festivals to their honour, and they acknowledged their sovereigns at the hands of a few soldiers, who elevated or disgraced them agreeably to their caprice or pleasure; constantly subject to an arbitrary proscriptiou, they were regardless of death, not from the ideas inspired by courage, but from the intoxication of vice; death interrupted no brilliant projects, no progression of useful suggestions; it severed no tender ties, it only interfered with the pleasures and amusements with which possibly they had been previously wearied and disgusted. Universal corruption had destroyed even the remembrance of virtue; and had any one shewed merely an inclination to have recalled it, he would only have excited astonishment united with censure. The moral virtues of the people of the East were swallowed up by sensual enjoyments; while those of the people of the North were lost sight of amidst martial exercises. If there still existed among this degenerate people a vestige of that innate taste for the arts, letters, and philosophy, it was directed towards metaphysical subtleties: while the sophistical spirit left them in doubt as to the truth of argument, and indifference respecting the affections of the heart." (P. 208.)

Next let them consider the character of the invaders; of the persons by whom these fallen Romans were to be replaced upon their original stage, or rather to be elevated to a loftier sphere of existence and character.

"The people of the North esteemed life as of little value; this disposition, though it inspired them with a degree of personal conrage, could not but be productive of cruelty towards others. They

were possessed of genius, melancholy, and an inclination to the mys terious; but at the same time they entertained a profound contempt for knowledge of every description, as incompatible with the spirit of a warrior. The women, possessing more leisure, were much better instructed than the men; they were beloved, and the men were faithful to them; their affection naturally produced a degree of sensibility; but power, and the loyal fidelity of a warrior, and truth as an attribute of power, were the only ideas they ever ascribed to virtue the gratification of their vengeance was by them dignified with a place in the heavens. By exhibiting the scars in the foreparts of their bodies, by reciting the numbers of their enemies whose blood they had spilt, they thought to captivate the affections of the softer sex. They offered human victims, to their mistresses, as to their gods. Their gloomy atmosphere presented nothing to their imaginations but storms and darkness; they marked the revolution of days by the calculation of nights, and the progress of years by the winters. The giants of frost presided over their exploits. According to their traditions, the deluge of the earth was a deluge of blood; and they believed that Odin looked down from heaven to anis -mate their carnage. Their rewards and punishments were all pro portioned to their actions in war. Man, with them, seemed born but for the destruction of his fellow man. They paid no respect to advanced age: they regarded every species of study with contempt; and were utter strangers to humanity. The faculties of their minds were engrossed by one pursuit:- -war was their sole occupation, and their only aim was conquest." (P. 206.)

Such were the invaders and the invaded, such, in her own language, "were the principles from which were to be extracted gentleness, morality, and a taste for letters."What could amalgamate such heterogeneous ingredients? and what could transform them to pure gold? What bond of union could be found for men so disunited by taste, and so exasperated by war? Mar dame de Staël informs us.

It was in the midst of this deplorable state of things that the Christian religion offered its powerful aid...

"The Christian religion, having a legislator whose grand aim was the perfection of morals, and to unite under the same banner nations of different manners, and of a contrary belief, could not fail of being more favourable to the increase of virtue, and the expansion of the faculties of the mind. Many combinations were necessary in order to secure the confidence of two nations so opposite in their manners as the people of the North and those of the East. The Christian religion was chosen by the people of the North; it was favourable to their melancholy disposition and inclination for gloomy images, and also to their continual and profound contemplation rela tive to the destination of the dead. There was nothing in the prin eiples of paganism which could have rendered it acceptable to a

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people of this character; the dogmas of the Christian religion, and the exalted spirit of the first sectaries, encouraged and directed the habitual depression inspired by their cloudy atmosphere. Some of their virtues, as truth, chastity, and a strict observance of their promises, were consecrated by the divine laws; thus religion, without altering the nature of their courage, contrived to divert it to another object; their customs required them to support every hardship with magnanimity, in order to be esteemed illustrious in war: religion enjoined them to brave all sufferings, and even death itself, in the defence of their faith and the fulfilment of their several duties; destructive intrepidity was changed into an unshaken resolution; and resistance, which had no other aim but to conquer force, was directed by principles of morality. The errors of fanaticism have often perverted the judgment and ruined the principles; but in this instance it caused a nation, till then invincible, to understand and acknowledge a power superior to their own; to substitute duties for laws; and the terror produced by religion proved a restraint on their ac tions. The man of inferior abilities menaced his superior, and the dawn of equality may be said to have first received its existence.

"The people of the East, susceptible of enthusiasm, readily devoted themselves to a life of contemplation, which was analogous to their climate and inclinations, They were the first to receive with ardour the monarchical institutions. Austerities and mortifications were quickly adopted by a nation given up to a voluptuous satiety, which naturally led to an exaggeration of religious observances. A people so ardent, credulous, and fanatic, were an easy prey to superstition, and to crimes at which nature and humanity shudder; reli gion was less beneficial to them than to the people of the North, on account of their more extended depravity and corruption of morals. The task, is easier to civilize an ignorant race than to elevate a corrupted people from their state of depravation.

"The Christian religion gave new vigour to the principles of moral life in a set of men who were without connection, without any direct pursuit in view, or any tie that could endear their existence. It is true, it was incapable of restoring to them their country; but it elevated their thoughts, polluted with the vices of mankind, to a future state; and they found consolation in the hope of participating in a happy immortality. Thus many characters were awakened to energy by religion; and in consequence of the follies of martyrdom, resulted a renunciation of self-interest, and an abstraction of thought, which proved very favourable to the human intellect.

"The Christian religion became a bond of union between the people of the North and those of the East; it blended manners and opinions that were before diametrically opposite; and, by recon ciling the most inveterate enemies, formed nations, among whom energy has strengthened talents, and talents have awakened new energies. This reciprocal benefit was, nevertheless, produced by slow degrees. Eternal Providence employs centuries in the accom plishment of its designs; while our circumscribed existence feels

irritated and amazed at the delay. But eventually the victors and the vanquished have formed but one united people in the different countries of Europe." (P, 211.)

Our readers will perceive the mixture of strange and offensive phraseology in this fine extract; but will also perceive the truth and the power of most of the observations. Had she better understood the genius of a religion, which she has studied, we fear, merely as she would study any system of philosophy or morals, her statement would have gained in precision and force. But, as it is, it may be considered as the homage of philosophy to the Gospel, as a monument erected to Christianity with stones dug out from the quarry of human wisdom. Madame de Staël, it is to be observed, does not attribute these consequences to religion, because the Scriptures teach us to expect them; but, searching in the elaboratory of ages for some grand transmuting power to which these extraordinary results may be attributed, she fixes upon Christianity as the only and the all-sufficient instrument. It would scarcely be unjust to say, that the author was in some degree impelled in opposition to her bias to yield this tribute to religion. The supreme, the unceasing, the undeviating object of her work is to magnify the operation of literature, but she has burthened literature with more than it can bear. Whilst in search of some fresh triumphs for letters, she is constrained to surrender the wreath to religion. She displays unintentionally the inadequacy of literature in the picture of prostrate Rome, Rome, the school of arts, the theatre of wonders, the instructress of the world, the mother of historians, and orators, and poets, ruined by her own aggrandisements, and buried under her own monuments. Unintentionally, also, in the prosecution of her literary zeal, she shews us this Rome, thus sunk and debased, thus mouldering in the ruins heaped around her by her own vices and the fury of barbarians; thus doubly defiled by the combination of wild passions with exhausted principles; this prostrate empire, by the touch of Christianity, roused, stimulated, quickened once more into life, productive energetic life, diffusing vital wisdom and regenerated letters through a barbarous world.

We shall finally call upon Madame de Staël to describe the progress of the human mind wrought by Christianity, even upon the worst subjects, in the worst times, and under a most degenerate form. Even then this powerful agent was secretly working the most important changes, fusing in the hidden cauldron the unmalleable matter, and moulding it into the forms which presented themselves at the end of some centuries.

"If the human understanding had not made some progress even