Some of these have fallen into the opposite extreme of religious refinement; too airy to be tangible, too mystic to be intelligible. The Apostle's religion is not like theirs, a shadowing sentiment, but a vital principle; not a matter of taste, but of conviction of faith and feeling. It is not a fair idea, but a holy affection. The Deity at which they catch

is a gay and gorgeous cloud; Paul's is the fountain of light. His re

ligion is definite and substantial, and more profound than splendid. It is not a panegyric upon Christianity, but a homage to it. He is too devout to be ingenious, too earnest to be fanciful, too humble to be inventive. His sober mind could discern no analogy between the sublime truths of Christianity and the fine arts. His truth has no shades; in him whatever is right is absolute. Nor does he ever make error perform the work of truth, by ascribing to enthusiasm any of the good effects of religion.-To have placed the doctrines of revelation as congenial associates with the talents of poets and artists, he could have thought not only a degradation of the principle of our faith, but an impeachment of the divine dispensations. God would have all men to be saved; Christ would have the Gospel preached to every creature. Now if we compare the very small minority of ethereal spirits, who are fed by genius, who subsist on the luxuries of the imagination, who are nurtured by music, who revel in poetry and sculpture, with the innumerable multitudes who have scarcely heard whether there be any such thing, such a limited, such a whimsical, such an unintelligible, such an unattainable Christianity would rob the mass of mankind of all present comfort, of all future hope.-Ours is a religion, not of ingenuity, but of obedience. As we must not omit any thing which God has commanded, so we must not invent devices which he does not command.Too often persons of fine genius to whom Christianity begins to present itself, do not so much seek to penetrate its depths, where alone they are to be explored, in the unerring word of God, as in their own pullulating imaginations. Their taste and their pursuits have familiarized with the vast, the grand, and the interesting; and they think to sanctify those in a way of their own. The feeling of the infinite in nature, and the beautiful in art; the flights of poetry, of love, of glory, alternately elevate their imagination, and they denominate the splendid combination poetry; but the new cloth' will never assort with the old garment.' These elegant spirits seem to live in a certain lofty region in their own minds, where they know the multitude cannot soar after them; they derive their grandeur from this elevation, which separates them with the creature of their imagination, from all ordinary attributes, and all associations of daily occurrence. In this middle region, too high for earth, too low for heaven; too refined for sense, and too gross for spirit; they keep a magazine of airy speculations, and shining reveries, and puzzling metaphysics."

These are the sentiments of Mrs. Hannah More with which Madame Necker de Saussure has thought fit to quarrel; and upon the strength, or imputed weakness of which she has founded her observation, that " our countrywoman has not examined the question in all its bearings." Let the Christian

public judge between them; only let the question be decided upon scriptural grounds, and with reference to an inspired arbitration. For our own parts, wet hink we are safer near the rocks of Chedder, than on the borders of the Leman-lake. The eminences in the vicinity of Barley-wood are covered with verdure, their brows are cherished in the sunbeam, and freshened with the dews of heaven: the mountains that surround the romantic abodes of these Swiss philosophers, rise indeed with their acute tops into the thin altitudes of the upper ether, but there all is chill, and steril, and comfortless, and there they sustain a weight of perpetual snow, and there they threaten the vallies beneath with the ponderous masses of their unbalanced burthens.

The work of Madame de Staël, on the French Revolution, scarcely finished in her life time, and published after her death, has also been so fully considered in a former volume of this Review, that we feel ourselves discharged from all further observation of it.* And yet, to mention these volumes, and not advert to the fine picture there given of Buonaparte and his government, we find it hard. Let us once more direct our readers, especially those who may think this is a nation to be discontented in, to some few of those numerous passages which contradict their folly. "But it will be said, though we admire the English, yet France must always be the rival of their power: there is only one way of equalling England, and that is by imitating her." Alluding to the Continental System, "what has been the result," says Madame de Staël, "of the terrible anathema of Buonaparte? The power of England has increased in the four quarters of the globe, her influence over foreign governments has been unlimited, and it ought to be so, considering the magnitude of the evil from which she preserved Europe. Buonaparte, whom the world persists in calling able, has, however, found the awkward art of multiplying every where the resources of his adversaries, and in particular of augmenting those of England." And again, on the same subject, "Is it possible to speak of legislation in a country where the will of a single man decided every thing-where this man, uncertain and fluctuating, as the billows of the ocean during a tempest, was unable to endure the barriers of his own will, if the regulation of the evening was opposed to the next day's desire of change?" The second volume of this interesting and important work, of the same great writer, thus concludes." Of the whole inheritance of his (Buonaparte's) dreadful power, there remains nothing to mankind but the baneful knowledge of a few secrets the more in the art of tyranny." And with this

* Vol. XII. Art. 11.

sentence we conclude our observations on the works of Madame de Staël, lamenting the narrow room which our pages allow us for a subject on which we could with pleasure take a more extended range.

Madame Necker's book is professedly a sketch; she passes rapidly through the writings of Madame de Staël, and on each head she is rather the eulogist than the commentator. She concludes her literary view of this object of her idolatry with a sweeping panegyric on her talents, in which no topic of praise that has ever been found appropriate to human attainments is omitted. And thus she sums up the testimonies of her devout and rapturous homage.

"A sort of carelessness about the value that might be attached to her discoveries is often remarked in her. This was the fruit of that immense creative power which gave her a certainty of being incessantly new but it more particularly arose from her being so entirely absorbed by her subject, that she completely lost sight of her literary reputation. Madame de Staël was desirous of advancing the human mind; she wished to revive among her cotemporaries-among the French, in particular-the same mental powers which were in her so active. She would have sacrificed her life, if necessary, for the causes she has advocated; and, except the sacred writers, she is perhaps the only one of superior eminence whose principal object was something nobler than fame.

"The more her laudable motives have been understood, the greater has been the merit allowed her works. She had always written from impulse; but an inspiration, the origin of which is personal, does not impress upon talents their noblest character. It was not only in manner that Madame de Staël improved: the increasing excellence of her works, both in matter and style, seems connected with a similar progress in her own existence. There was more harmony within, and more also between her and others. Her ardour, turned wholly to a fine sentiment of morality, vivified a more extensive sphere, and was at the same time more equal and more communicative; her emotions, better regulated, expanded more abroad. The effervescence of youth did not increase her real strength: the ardour of her mind required not the warmth of the blood.

"If any one of Madame de Staël's productions be not altogether herself, her mind is diffused through them all. It will be difficult to recompose in thought that prodigious being; but posterity will find scattered about what we have possessed in its most astonishing, as well as in its most amiable combination. They who are desirous of writing, in particular, will read her works over and over again; not, assuredly, to aim at imitating an originality, which in them could no longer deserve the title, but because they will find in them the two elements of creation, matter and motion. To that mine they may have recourse without end, and without being suspected, because every thing it contains has not been worked up. On a second, on a third reading, we

the

shall find, with surprise, ideas that we had not before noticed, ideas that we imagined we had derived from our own experience. These books, in which every thing seems to be said, still invite to reflection, and they point out to the mind more paths than the author had time to explore. "On the whole, the works of Madame de Staël appear to belong to a new age; they announce, as they tend to produce, another period in society and in literature; the age of strong, generous, animated thoughts sentiments proceeding from the bottom of the heart. She has furnished the idea of a literature in some sort, rather spoken than written; of a kind in which the extempore speaking of national assemblies, unrestrained confidence, and conversational sallies, inform us more strongly and more intimately of politics, of the passions, and of society, than studied rhetoric has ever done.

:

"Thus the literary art has been exalted by her. It will no longer be an idle industry, a means of exciting the image of an empty beauty in our hearts; it will be more closely connected with life, and will exert more influence over it; it will exhibit less the labour of man "than man himself connected with immortality. It will be the general expression of the noblest wishes, the depository of thoughts, which some day will realize themselves in useful enterprises or institutions, and the future will exist in it entire." (P. 203-207.)

Madame Necker having completed the literary life of her friend, undertakes next to afford us some insight into the character of her private and domestic intercourse. But, as we have already observed, in this branch of her undertaking, promising by far the most gratifying and instructive information, she is meagre and unsatisfactory in the extreme. The last scene of this great actress on the theatre of life, would have rivetted our attention. But all is feebly and gossippingly executed. Exhausted by her over-laboured eulogy, the writer completes her task with lassitude and langour. The main subject of this interior part of her exposition of her friend's character and intercourse, is the superlative affection borne by her to her father, the celebrated French minister, Mr. Necker. We have always thought that the tender tie that unites a father and a daughter has something special in its character that raises it almost above all other human friendships. It seems to be the best and purest earthly representation of heavenly love. The isicle is not purer, the sun beam that melts it has not more animating warmth. We speak of it as it exists in virtuous and gentle minds. Something, however, there is of bustle, and pomp, and enthusiasm in the love of Madame de Staël to her father which prevents it from exciting in us that same degree of sympathy which we have been conscious of in contemplating this holy sort of attachment in other cases. It may be the fault of Madame Necker's representation; she has given it an air of extravagance, by which, if not in harmony with the real exhi

bition made of it by Madame de Staël herself, she has done her an injury in the part of her character, the most tender and interesting. We will produce a few examples in illustration of our meaning, rather than permit ourselves to make unfavourable remarks in a matter so delicate, we had almost said, sacred.

"However, she was little disposed to anticipate future troubles; and, if a sudden flash disclosed to her what was to come, the present moment soon re-occupied her thoughts. Heaven had made her improvident and Mr. Necker has said, that she was like the savages, who would sell their hut in the morning, without thinking what they should do at night. With regard to him, she would pass instantly from the most anxious solicitude to the completest security. So full of life herself, she could scarcely believe in death. Unable to endure the thought of looking on her father as an old man, whatever she found in him of pleasing and agreeable, his quick comprehension of her meaning, a certain freshness of imagination, of curiosity, of gaiety, which he still possessed, were incessantly cherishing illusions in her. She conversed with him as mentally her equal, and forgot the difference of their ages. Some person once telling her, that Mr. Necker had grown old, she repelled the idea with a sort of anger, answering, that she should consider the person who repeated such an expression as her greatest enemy, whom she would never see again as long as she lived." (P. 215, 216.)

Again upon the subject we have the following anecdote.

"I know not whether I dare mention certain scenes, too private, perhaps too familiar. I shall venture on the following, however, so characteristic does it appear to me of Madame de Staël's great susceptibility of emotion in every thing concerning her father, and of the manner in which she endeavoured to act on the imagination, even when addressing herself to persons of the lower class.

"Mr. Necker being at Coppet with her, had sent his carriage to Geneva to fetch me and my children. It was night when we set out; and on the road we were overturned into a ditch. We were none of us hurt, but it was some time before we could get the coach up again, and it was late when we arrived. We found Madame de Staël alone in the parlour. She was rather uneasy about us: but when I began to relate our accident, she stopped me short, asking: How did you come?* In your father's carriage.' 'Yes, I know that: but who drove you?' Who? his coachman, of course.' 'What! his coachman Richel?" "Yes, Richel.' Oh, good God!' exclaimed she, he might have overturned my father.' Immediately she sprung to the bell, and ordered Richel to come in. Richel was putting up his horses, and it was necessary to wait.

During this interval, Madame de Staël paced the room backward and forward in the most violent agitation. What! my father, my poor father,' said she, he would have been overturned! At your age, and that of your children, it is nothing; but with his size, his great size!—