634 MAD. DE STAËL-PASSION FOR HER FATHER,

sive decay by her love and sanguine temper, she resented, almost with fury, every insinuation or casual hint as to his age or declining health. After his death, this passion took another turn. Every old man now recalled the image of her father! and she watched over the comforts of all such persons, and wept over their sufferings, with a painful intenseness of sympathy. The same deep feeling mingled with her devotions, and even tinged her strong intellect with a shade of superstition. She believed that her soul communicated with his in prayer; and that it was to his intercession that she owed all the good that afterwards befell her. Whenever she met with any piece of good fortune, she used to say, "It is my father that has obtained this for me."

In her happier days, this ruling passion took occasionally a more whimsical aspect; and expressed itself with a vivacity of which we have no idea in this phlegmatic country, and which more resembles the childish irritability of Voltaire, than the lofty enthusiasm of the person actually concerned. We give, as a specimen, the following anecdote from the work before us. Madame Saussure had come to Coppet from Geneva in M. Necker's carriage; and had been overturned in the way, but without receiving any injury. On mentioning the accident to Madame de Staël on her arrival, she asked with great vehemence who had driven; and on being told that it was Richel, her father's ordinary coachman, she exclaimed in an agony, "My God, he may one day overturn my father!" and rung instantly with violence for his appearance. While he was coming, she paced about the room in the greatest possible agitation, crying out, at every turn, "My father, my poor father! he might have been overturned!"—and turning to her friend, "At your age, and with your slight person, the danger is nothing, but with his age and bulk! I cannot bear to think of it." The coachman now came in; and this lady, so mild and indulgent and reasonable with all her attendants, turned to him in a sort of frenzy, and with a voice of solemnity, but choked with emotion, said, "Richel,

do

ANECDOTE ILLUSTRATING-LOVE OF DISPUTATION.

635

you know that I am a woman of genius?"-The poor man stood in astonishment-and she went on, louder, "Have you not heard, I say, that I am a woman of genius?" Coachy was still mute. "Well then! I tell you that I am a woman of genius-of great genius -of of prodigious genius!-and I tell you more-that all the genius I have shall be exerted to secure your rotting out your days in a dungeon, if ever you overturn my father!" Even after the fit was over, she could not be made to laugh at her extravagance; but was near beginning again-and said, " And what had I to conjure with but my poor genius ?"

Her insensibility to natural beauty is rather unaccountable, in a mind constituted like hers, and in a native of Switzerland. But, though born in the midst of the most magnificent scenery, she seems to have thought, like Dr. Johnson, that there was no scene equal to the high tide of human existence in the heart of a populous city. "Give me the Rue de Bae," said she, when her guests were in ecstasies with the Lake of Geneva and its enchanted shores-"I would prefer living in Paris, in a fourth story, with a hundred Louis a year." These were her habitual sentiments;-But she is said to have had one glimpse of the glories of the universe, when she went first to Italy, after her father's death, and was engaged with Corinne. And in that work, it is certainly true that the indications of a deep and sincere sympathy with nature are far more conspicuous than in any of her other writings. For this enjoyment and late-developed sensibility, she always said she was indebted to her father's intercession.

The world is pretty generally aware of the brilliancy of her conversation in mixed company; but we were not aware that it was generally of so polemic a character, or that she herself was so very zealous a disputant, -such a determined intellectual gladiator as her cousin here represents her. Her great delight, it is said, was in eager and even violent contention; and her drawingroom at Coppet is compared to the Hall of Odin, where

636 MAD. DE STAËL-STRONG RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS.

the tumult of the fight, and, after having cut each other in pieces, revived to renew the combat in the morning. In this trait, also, she seems to have resembled our Johnson,- though, according to all accounts, she was rather more courteous to her opponents. These fierce controversies embraced all sorts of subjectspolitics, morals, literature, casuistry, metaphysics, and history. In the early part of her life, they turned oftener upon themes of pathos and passion-love and death, and heroical devotion; but she was cured of this lofty vein by the affectations of her imitators. "I tramp in the mire with wooden shoes," she said, "whenever they would force me to go with them among the clouds." In the same way, though sufficiently given to indulge, and to talk of her emotions, she was easily disgusted by the parade of sensibility which is sometimes made by persons of real feeling; observing, with admirable force and simplicity, "Que tous les sentiments naturels ont leur pudeur."

She had at all times a deep sense of religion. Educated in the strict principles of Calvinism, she was never seduced into any admiration of the splendid apparatus and high pretensions of Popery; although she did not altogether escape the seductions of a more sublime superstition. In theology, as well as in every thing else, however, she was less dogmatic than persuasive; and, while speaking from the inward conviction of her own heart, poured out its whole warmth, as well as its convictions, into those of others; and never seemed to feel any thing for the errors of her companions but a generous compassion and an affectionate desire for their removal. She rather testified in favour of religion, in short, than reasoned systematically in its support; and, in the present condition of the world, this was perhaps the best service that could be rendered. Placed in many respects in the most elevated condition to which humanity could aspire-possessed unquestionably of the highest powers of reasoning-emancipated, in a singular degree, from prejudices, and entering with the keenest relish into all the feelings that seemed to suffice for the

HER TWO MARRIAGES.

637

happiness and occupation of philosophers, patriots, and lovers-she has still testified, that without religion there is nothing stable, sublime, or satisfying! and that it alone completes and consummates all to which reason or affection can aspire. A genius like hers, and so directed, is, as her biographer has well remarked, the only Missionary that can work any permanent effect on the upper classes of society in modern times;-upon the vain, the learned, the scornful, and argumentative, — they "who stone the Prophets while they affect to offer incense to the Muses.'

Both her marriages have been censured; the first, as a violation of her principles-the second, of dignity and decorum. In that with M. de Staël, she was probably merely passive. It was respectable, and not absolutely unhappy; but unquestionably not such as suited her. Of that with M. Rocca, it will not perhaps be so easy to make the apology. We have no objection to a love-match at fifty:-But where the age and the rank and fortune are all on the lady's side, and the bridegroom seems to have little other recommendation than a handsome person, and a great deal of admiration, it is difficult to escape ridicule, or something more severe than ridicule. Mad. N. S. seems to us to give a very candid and interesting account of it; and undoubtedly goes far to take off what is most revolting on the first view, by letting us know that it originated in a romantic attachment on the part of M. Rocca; and that he was an ardent suitor to her, before the idea of loving him had entered into her imagination. The broken state of his health, too—the short period she survived their union -and the rapidity with which he followed her to the grave-all tend not only to extinguish any tendency to ridicule, but to disarm all severity of censure; and lead us rather to dwell on the story as a part only of the tragical close of a life full of lofty emotions.

Like most other energetic spirits, she despised and neglected too much the accommodation of her bodycared little about exercise, and gave herself no great

638

MAD. DE STAËL-NOT A FOUNDRESS

belonged to her character, she affected to triumph over infirmity; and used to say-"I might have been sickly, like any body else, had I not resolved to vanquish all physical weaknesses." But Nature would not be defied! —and she died, while contemplating still greater undertakings than any she had achieved. On her sick-bed, none of her great or good qualities abandoned her. To the last she was kind, patient, devout, and intellectual. Among other things, she said-"J'ai toujours été la même-vive et triste. J'ai aimé Dieu, mon père, et la liberté!" She left life with regret-but felt no weak terrors at the approach of death-and died at last in the utmost composure and tranquillity.

We would rather not make any summary at present of the true character and probable effects of her writings. But we must say, we are not quite satisfied with that of her biographer. It is too flattering, and too eloquent and ingenious. She is quite right in extolling the great fertility of thought which characterises the writings of her friend; and, with relation to some of these writings, she is not perhaps very far wrong in saying that, if you take any three pages in them at random, the chance is, that you meet with more new and striking thoughts than in an equal space in any other author. But we cannot at all agree with her, when, in a very imposing passage, she endeavours to show that she ought to be considered as the foundress of a new school of literature and philosophy—or at least as the first who clearly revealed to the world that a new and a grander era was now opening to their gaze.

In so far as regards France, and those countries which derive their literature from her fountains, there may be some foundation for this remark; but we cannot admit it as at all applicable to the other parts of Europe; which have always drawn their wisdom, wit, and fancy, from native sources. The truth is, that previous to her revolution, there was no civilized country where there had been so little originality for fifty years as in France. In literature, their standards had been fixed nearly a century before: and to alter, or even to advance them,