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THE

ANALECTIC MAGAZINE.

AUGUST, 1818.

ART. I.-Madame de Stael.

WE have prefixed to this number, a striking likeness of the woman who filled a larger space in the eyes of Europe, than any of her female cotemporaries. She may, indeed, be said to have established a more brilliant reputation in the republic of letters, than any one of her sex that has ever lived. Her death, which happened at Coppet, in Switzerland, in July 1817, produced an almost unexampled sensation,-the more lively, on account of the striking and affecting circumstances by which it was marked. At the commencement of the year, she seemed to have anchored firmly in the port of earthly happiness: the storms which were constantly gathering over her head during the ascendancy of Bonaparte, had all passed away; she was safe from persecution and exile; Lewis XVIII had restored to her the two millions of francs which her father, M. Necker, deposited in the treasury of France, in the year 1790; her daughter was united to a man of the highest rank and of distinguished talents; her residence in Switzerland had become a shrine at which genius and learning were always to be found assembled from every part of Europe. She could devote her leisure to composition with all the aids to be drawn from the most intelligent and varied society, an abundant fortune, and entire freedom of opinion. She was yet young, comparatively, not having exceeded her fiftieth year, and being of a constitution that promised a long life. In the midst of these advantages, she was surprised by a fatal malady, and after five months of the severest suffering, sunk into the arms of death. Such a catastrophe to such bright hopes; so radiant a genius so unexpectedly quenched; the exuberant spring of so much rich imagery and fine philosophy forever dried up; the centre and soul of so captivating a society, irretrievably gone;-were considerations that rushed at once upon all minds and hearts, and gave, in her case, a peculiar solemnity and sadness to the common fate of mortals.

Madame de Stael was born and educated to splendid destinies. Her father, M. Necker, was a farmer-general of immense wealth, and of great talents and knowledge; her mother was remarkable for the extent of her literary attainments, the strength of her un

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derstanding, and the dignity of her character. M. Necker, even when at the head of the finances of France, might still be said to be wrapped up in this their only child, who requited his care by an admiration and devotion almost fanatical, and never for an instant interrupted by any of the vicissitudes of his memorable career. At an early age she married a man of rank, the baron de Stael, ambassador from Sweden to the court of France. Placed thus, by reason of the situation of both father and husband, in the very vortex of the dissipation of the French court, she yet sought and contrived to win the highest distinction in the walks of literature. She had only reached her twentieth year when she published her Letters upon the works and character of J. J. Rousseau'wherein she displayed, occasionally, powers of composition almost rivalling those of the extraordinary man of whom she treated. Able critics have decided that she presented, in this little volume, a more satisfactory analysis and juster views of the genius and tendency of his writings, than are contained in the many ponderous dissertations to which the controversy on these topics has given birth. She was of opinion that Rousseau had been guilty of suicide, and gave some offence to his worshippers, by bringing together all the circumstance swhich lead-as we think, irresistiblyto that conclusion. It was over the women of his day that Rousseau had thrown his deepest spell, and it redounds to the credit of Madame de Stael's youthful judgment, that she escaped with something of a moderate degree of enthusiasm for the works of the arch enemy of order and morals.-The 'Letters upon Rousseau' attracted much attention, and were assailed in several pamphiets, to one of which the fair author replied in a powerful strain of vindication.

In the year 1790, she printed two dramatic effusions in versethe one a comedy, entitled Sophia, or Secret Sentiments;-the other, a tragedy, The Lady Jane Gray; both composed two years preceding. In the month of August, 1793, appeared her Defence of Marie Antoinette; that is, two months before the execution of the unhappy queen. We owe a tribute of praise to the generosity of spirit which dictated this production, and to the courage implied in the publication of it at such a period. Madame de Stael had the best opportunities of observing the character of the so much reviled consort of Lewis XVI; she approached her often, and was the less liable to view her with partiality, as the queen would have prevented the return of M. Necker to the ministry, and took no pains to conceal her aversion to the predominance of his counsels. His daughter stood forth fearlessly in her defence, in the hour of danger, and, to the last, asserted her titles to esteem, as may be seen by the following extract from her posthumous work, the Considerations on the French Revolution."

The queen, Marie Antoinette, was one of the most amiable and gracious persons who ever filled a throne: there was no reason why she should not preserve the love of the French, for she had done nothing to forfeit it. As far, therefore, as personal qualities went, the king and

queen might claim the hearts of their subjects; but the arbitrary form of the government, as successive ages had moulded it, accorded so ill with the spirit of the times, that even the virtues of the sovereigns were overlooked amid the accumulation of abuses.'*

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The masculine genius with which Madame de Stael was endowed, and the restless activity of her spirit, would have led her to politics, had not even the conjuncture and her domestic relations been such as they were, and the habits of her sex in France conducive to that end. We may conjecture how far they were privileged in the world of business, by the remarks which she makes on the subject in the work last mentioned. Women of a certain rank used to interfere with every thing before the revolution. Their husbands and their brothers were in the practice of employing them on all occasions as applicants to ministers; they could urge a point strongly, with less apparent impropriety; could even outstep the proper limits, without affording an opening to complaint: and all the insinuations, which they knew how to employ, gave them considerable influence over men in office.'

Madame de Stael engaged in the great political discussions of the day, with an interest proportionate to the vivacity of her spirit, the liberality of her studies, her enthusiastic love of France, and her stake in the concerns of her father. Her unbounded veneration for his judgment, restrained her within the circle of his opinions and aims, which looked only to gradual and moderate reform in the institutions of France. He wished and laboured for as complete an assimilation of them to those of England, as should be practicable, and his daughter, whom youthful ardour and the prevailing external influences might have propelled further, stopped short with him at this point. Her doctrines, and the part which she acted, were distinct from those of the Mesdames Roland and Tallien; as her judgment and talents were of a different order, and her destinies deservedly more fortunate. In the school of her father, and in the struggle of principles and opinions which preceded the convulsions of anarchy, she was confirmed in that attachment to political freedom, which she ever afterwards boldly avowed in her writings, and exemplified in her conduct. We may trace to the force of the impressions which she received during her father's administration, as well as to the natural magnanimity of her character, her open reprobation of all the revolutionary governments of France, as they in turn usurped arbitrary power;-her perseverance in asserting the doctrines of constitutional liberty, and denouncing the evils of despotism, when the republican leaders, the most in repute for intrepidity and sincerity, had set her the example of prostrating themselves before the imperial throne of Bonaparte. It may be readily imagined how much the movements and objects of the higher society of Paris, in which she was called to partake by personal interests so immediate, and tastes so congenial, contributed to the development of her genius, and the en

* 1st volume, page 47.

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