14. Madame de

Stael as a po

litical writer.

16.

calculated to command esteem or conciliate af- | conceptions are nothing but a picture of what fection among the majority of their country-has passed in her own breast, Madame de Staël men. In addition to these defects, which Cha- had suffered much in life from the strength of teaubriand had in no small degree, he was con- her affections; and there was more reason than sumed by a thirst for applause, and an inor- is ordinarily supposed in her well-known saydinate vanity, wholly unworthy of his genius, ing, that she would give all her talents to have and which in a manner disqualified him for the Madame Recamier's beauty. But in the delinlead in the practical concerns of men. His Me- eation of sentiment, in both these works, she moires d'outre Tombe, amidst many brilliant ideas has displayed a truth and knowledge of the and much eloquent writing, contain pitiable human heart, as well as depth of feeling, which proofs of weakness in this respect. The same perhaps never was equaled. Her brilliant impropensity led him on many occasions to sacri-agination and ardent genius appear not less confice his usefulness to his love of approbation, spicuously in the numerous disquisitions on suband rather to sink down in gloomy apathy at jects of taste, literature, and antiquity, which the progress of changes which he foresaw would enrich the former. They are so skillfully introprove ruinous, even to those who introduced duced, that while they fascinate the mind of them, than to exert his great powers in a manly the reader by the justice of the sentiment, and spirit in the endeavor to counteract them. the eloquence of the language in which they Contemporary with Chateaubriand, and, like are conveyed, they all tend to enhance the inhim, moulded both in sentiment and terest felt in the heroine from whose impasopinion by the events of the Revo- sioned life they chiefly emanate, and unfold the lution, was another writer, of the growth of the mutual passion from the identity other sex, but at the very head of of feeling in which it originated. all that female genius has ever effected in the works of imagination-MADAME DE STAEL. The daughter of M. Necker, and bred up in an amiable but exaggerated idea of his greatness as a statesman, she was, as a matter of necessity, early imbued with all those ideas of human perfectibility, and the unbounded virtue and intelligence of the middle and working classes of society, which, when practically applied, as a matter of necessity brought on the Revolution. The strength of this original bent was such that it survived all the experience of that convulsion, and consequently rendered her political writings estimable, rather from the genius they display, and the enthusiasm by which they are animated, than the judgment they evince, or the facts on which they are rested. Yet in cases where the influence of this disturbing element was less strongly felt, the native strength of her understanding made her take a just view of human institutions; and nowhere-not even in the writings of our own political philosophers are more profound views to be found on the working of the English Constitution than in the eloquent treatise on the French Revolution. But the real greatness of Madame de Staël is to be found in her romances and critHer char- ical writings: Corinne and De l'Alacter as a lemagne have rendered her name imnovelist. mortal. Notwithstanding the strength of her understanding, her imagination was still stronger: she was a perfect woman in all her emotions; and she both felt and has portrayed the affections with a truth and beauty which, if it ever has been equaled, has assuredly never been surpassed. The tender feelings in her were heightened by all that imagination, taste, and refinement could add to the native strength of passion; and her delicacy as a woman has led her to portray them with a pathos and refinement which must command the ad miration of every succeeding age. Considered merely as novels, there is much that may be objected to both in Corinne and Delphine; in both the story is, in part, at least, improbable, the catastrophe painful. Unfortunate love, ever the strongest and most lasting in this world, in both occupied her thoughts. If it be true, as has been often said, that a woman's imaginary

15.

As a critic Madame de Staël possessed equal merits. She was distinguished by that first and greatest quality in judg- Her merits ing of others-a vivid appreciation as a critic. of their beauties, and a generous enthusiasm in discussing them. Unlike the generality of critics, who are too often envious and secondrate men, she admired greatness in others because she felt it in herself: she was so powerful that she could afford to be generous, and felt a sympathetic glow when she approached the works of genius, which she was conscious she was capable of emulating. Other critics, Schlegel and Bouterwek, may have exceeded her in the discrimination with which they have pointed out the blemishes in the great works of the German drama, but none have equaled her in the generous enthusiasm with which she appreciated its excellencies. The masterpieces of Schiller, Goethe, and Klopstock are discussed with the ardent admiration of kindred genius, but at the same time with the discriminating judgment of genuine taste. It is said in Germany that it is no wonder the criticisms on Schiller are firstrate, for he wrote them himself; but probably that is the very reason why it may with safety be concluded that they are to be ascribed to the authoress whose name they bear. No man is a good judge of his own performances; and there is nothing in the prose writings of Schiller which either approaches to the genius of his poetical compositions, or warrants the belief that he could have written the eloquent pages of De l'Allemagne.

17.

As a philosophic writer, Madame de Staël can not be assigned so high a place. It is seldom that women are equal to Her merits men in that department; and nothing as a philosis more certain than that, if they opher. were, they would lose the distinctive mark and principal charms of their sex. A philosophic woman may be the object of respect, but never by possibility of love, and there are probably few women who would willingly make the exchange. The peculiarities of Madame de Stael's mind, which rendered her so admirable in criticism, so charming in romance, made her little qualified to grapple with the evils or unfold the real principles of action in a world in which

While this rare combination explains how it has happened that he has risen to His pecul- eminence in both those generally iniar style of consistent careers, it teaches us what thought. to expect and what not to expect in his literary compositions. He is neither imag- lle views them not from year to year, but inative nor pictorial; he neither speaks dramas from century to century; and when 21. to the soul, nor pictures to the eye. He seldom considered in that commanding view, His mode aims at the pathetic, and has little eloquence at a distance from the din and inter- of viewing save what springs from the intensity of his est of individual action, it is surpris- human atthoughts. He is not a Livy nor a Gibbon, stilling how much its importance disapless a Lamartine or a Macaulay; nature has not given him either poetical or descriptive powers. He is a man of the very highest genius, taking that word in its loftiest acceptation; but it appears not in the narrative of particular events,

23.

the lapse of time, or the succession of other | the creative power is seldom seen except in actors, generally reveals their secondary agen- early life; and there is perhaps no man of origcy, and brings to light the real persons who inal thought, the germ of whose ideas was not put in motion the tide, by the ebb or flow of formed before he was thirty years of age. which society has been so violently agitated. If ever two great men stood in striking conStatesmen, or even generals, scarcely ever ac- trast to each other, it was Guizot and complish any thing which had not been already his victorious antagonist in the strife Lamartine. prepared by general causes. They sail often which overturned the throne of Louis triumphantly along the stream, and make an Philippe. If the turn of their respective minds able use of its strength and swiftness, but it is is considered, it will not appear surprising that not they who put the current in motion; they Guizot was the conservative minister, LAMARTINE embark on the waves when they see them flow- the democratic leader, on that occasion. As ing impetuously forward, and aim only at shap- much as the former is distinguished by historieing their own course according to their direc- al knowledge, patient research, and sober judg tion. It is the men who had previously determ- ment, the latter is characterized by ardent imined this direction, who had imprinted their agination, dramatic power, and pictorial splenown on the general mind, who are the real di- dor. Such is the vividness of the conceptions rectors of human affairs: it is the giants of of this charming writer, such the fervor of his thought who in the end govern the world. eloquence, and the brilliancy of his fancy, that Kings and ministers, princes and generals, they have tinged truth itself with the colors of warriors and legislators, are but the ministers fiction, and led to much really true being disof their blessings or curses to mankind. But credited in his writings, merely from the glow theirs is only a posthumous power; it is sel- of the language in which it was conveyed. dom that their dominion begins till they them- Like Macaulay, he is at once both a poet and a selves are mouldering in their graves. historian-a strange combination, according to the ordinary idea formed of the qualities requisite for the latter, but not unlikely to lead to greatness, if the former character is in due subordination to the latter; and the opinion of Mr. Fox is well founded, that history, in the art of composition, is to be placed next to poetry and before oratory.

cess.

22.

rian.

Guizot's largest undertaking is his edition of Gibbon's Rome; but though he has His chief enriched the Decline and Fall with publica- some notes of value, and many observtions. ations of interest, he can not be said to have added much to that wonderful History. Even his learning and industry, though they found much to subtract from, could discern If Lamartine's accuracy of research, patience little to add to the work of the immortal En- of investigation, and sobriety of 24. glishman. He has also begun a History of the judgment, had been equal to his His defects English Revolution, to which he had been led vividness of fancy, warmth of im- as a histoby his publication of a collection of memoirs agination, and fervor of eloquence, relative to that convulsion, in twenty-five vol- he would have made the greatest and most umes; but this work has only got the length popular historian of modern times. But, unof four volumes, and comes to the conclusion fortunately, this is very far from being the case; only of the second act in that mournful tragedy. and in truth, these qualities of mind are so opIt is lucid, able, and impartial, but it wants posite, that probably to the end of the world dramatic power, and has attained no great suc- they never will be found united in equal proIt was in his lectures from the chair of portions in the same individual. He forms his history at Paris that his genius shone forth in opinions from his impressions, not his impresits proper sphere and its true lustre; and there sions from his opinions; "impressionable comme he has produced works stamped with the sig- une femme" is his true characteristic. Not that net-seal of immortality. His Civilisation en he wants a clear intellect or the reasoning facFrance, in five volumes, and Essais sur l'His-ulty; on the contrary, he possesses both in a toire de France, and Civilisation Européene, each in one volume, are the fruit of his labors in that chair, and in all the same profound thought, sagacious discrimination, and lucid view are conspicuous. But by far the greatest of them all is the Civilisation Européene, and it throws a clearer light on the history of society in modern times, and the general progress of mankind from the exertions of its inhabitants, than any other work in existence. The accession of Guizot to the Ministry of Louis Philippe for several years put a stop to his literary labors, to which his expulsion from office and ruin of fortune by the Revolution of 1848 has given a fresh impulse. But though the same mind may be discerned in them all, it is in his earlier works that the originality of his genius and vigor of his thought are chiefly conspicuous. Experience and reading often add much to the illustration of original conception, or the facts by which it is to be supported, but they seldom extend the conception itself. Intellectual capacity often exists to a very advanced age, but

very high degree, as several short passages and passing reflections in all his works demonstrate. But such is the ardor of his mind and the brillianey of his conceptions, that these qualities are kept in abeyance, or concealed amidst the lustre of the language in which they are enveloped. He thinks from what he feels, not feels from what he thinks; and the former impressions are in general so forcible that he loses all control over them by the power of the latter. Such is the power of his descriptions, and his passion for dramatic effect, that even in portraying or narrating what is strictly true, his works pass for a creation of imagination, and those who follow in his footsteps are often surprised to find how much they are founded in reality. Whoever has tracked his wanderings along the shores of the Mediterranean, must be aware that he has not so much exaggerated what he had seen in his descriptions, as seen them through a Claude Lorraine medium; and those who have followed his steps in the Ilistory of the Girondists and the Restoration, as

25.

phic in thought, liberal in religious, and independent in political principle. He has interspersed his lengthened narrative with general reflections, which for depth of thought and justice of observation never were surpassed. But he is neither dramatic nor pictorial, seldom kindles the imagination, and still seldomer touches the heart. Extensive research and copious information are his great characteristics, and in these respects it is impossible to consult a more valuable writer. Unlike Lamartine, he gives his authority for every material fact asserted, and has filled his pages with such a multitude of official documents, that they often rather wear the aspect of a collection of state papers than a literary composition. This patient examination of, and constant reference to authority, render his works invaluable as books of reference, and as a storehouse of authentic information; but, unfortunately, they have very much impeded their popularity. No human ability can render lengthened quotations from state papers, letters, or deeds interesting; and where the judicious system is not adopted, of throwing them into notes or an appendix, though the work may be valuable as a repertory of information, it will never be interesting as a history. This defect is so conspicuous in Sismondi, whose Annals of the Italian Republics have swelled to sixteen, of France to two-and-thirty volumes, that perhaps no reader has ever got through the whole of both; and he himself is so sensible of it, that he has published admirable abridgments of each, which contain nearly all the philosophic conclusions that render the larger works so valuable and have attained deserved popularity. But this very circumstance shows a great deficiency in the original works; no abridgment of histories written with pictorial ability or dramatic power, ever had any success; you might as well attempt to abridge Waverley as Gibbon's Decline and Fall.

the author has done, must often do him the jus- | in investigation, cautious in conclusion, benevotice to say, that much of what passes with or-lent in feeling, he is at the same time philosodinary readers for fiction, is in reality only a dramatic narrative of real events. He is a sincere and devout believer in human perfectibility, a circumstance which His defects. explains how it has happened that, though of noble birth, he is attached to democratic principles; though inspired with generous feelings, he was instrumental in establishing a sordid and vulgar republic. Nearly all of similar habits and descent, who become the partisans of such changes, are led into them by that amiable illusion. Of course it deprives his historical and political writings of all weight in the formation of rational and lasting opinion; the first requisite in all productions which are to have that effect, is a correct estimate of the average character of, and of what may reasonably be expected from, human nature. Like all fanatics, whether in religion or polities, he is wholly inaccessible to reason, and beyond the reach of facts, how clear or convincing soever. Accordingly, his belief in human perfectibility and the virtue of the masses is unshaken, although he has himself confessed, in his History of the Revolution of 1848, that he himself and all his followers would have been thrown by the mob into the Seine, when assaulted in the Hôtel de Ville on April 10 of that year, if they had not been protected by three battalions of the Garde Mobile. He never on any occasion gives the authority on which any historical statement is founded-a defect which not only of authori deprives his works of all value as ties in his books of reference, but often does and person- great injustice to himself, by leading al vanity. his readers to imagine that the whole narrative is fiction, and that he gave no authorities because he really had none to give. He is inspired, like Chateaubriand, with the most inordinate and contemptible vanity, which is in an especial manner conspicuous in the history of the important events in which he himself bore a share, and has made his beautiful episode of "Raphael," which none who know the human heart can doubt is in the main founded in truth, to pass with the generality of readers for a mere romance, in which a vain man has recounted imaginary bonnes fortunes. But these, and many other weaknesses, which have proved fatal to his political weight and reputation, must be forgotten when we recollect what is really estimable in his character and elevated in his sentiments; and in particular, the admirable presence of mind and heroic courage with which he contended with the savage multitude in the Hôtel de Ville in the beginning of the Revolution of 1848, and prevented the convulsion which he himself had so large a share in producing from terminating in a second Reign of Terror.

26. His want

writings,

28.

essays.

Least popular with the present generation of all his works, because most adverse to general opinion, the Social His social and Political Essays of this profound and political thinker and erudite scholar are perhaps the most valuable. They are entirely original, and they run directly adverse to the current of general thought; it is not surprising, therefore, that they have made very little impression on the generation among which they appeared. He himself has told us that they have had very few readers, and that he does not think they would have had one if the English parliamentary reports had not established facts which could be explained on no other principle. It by no means follows from this, however, that the doctrines he has advanced are not in themselves just, and in the highest degree important to the future happiness of SISMONDI, if the most valuable qualities of a mankind; present popularity in works of abhistorian are considered, is the great-stract thought is an indication of coincidence est writer in that department which with general opinion, but by no means either France has ever produced. He is by of truth or ultimate success. Few physicians, no means, however, the most popular, and never and none above forty, would admit during his will become such. He has much, as a historian, life Harvey's discovery of the circulation of which we desiderate in Lamartine; but, unfor- the blood; ages elapsed before the Copernican tunately, Lamartine has much which we desid- system forced itself on general belief; and public erate in him. Indefatigable in research, patient opinion in Italy unanimously supported the In

27.

Sismondi.

29.

taken of communicating this information is infinitely more skillful. Not less than he, they give the authorities for every paragraph, often for every sentence; but, unlike him, they do not swell the text with long and tedious quotations from original documents, but quote the material words relied on in a few lines, or even words, in a note. Perhaps this is sometimes carried too far, for, by giving only detached expressions or sentences from the original

is truly conveyed, and whether the context, if fully given, would not in some material respects contradict it. But there can be no doubt that it is a very great improvement on the more voluminous system, for it not only renders the text much shorter, but more continuous and uniform in style, and therefore interesting, than when there is a continual interruption to make way for antiquated quotations. And the result appears in the different success of the different writers; for the History of the Conquest of England by the Normans, by Auguste, and of the Princes of the Carlovingian Race, and of Gaul under the Romans, by Amadée Thierry, each in three volumes, have attained very great popularity, and gone through several editions; while the forty-eight volumes of the History of France and of the Italian Republics slumber in respected obscurity amidst the dust of our libraries.

quisition, when they prosecuted Galileo for asserting that the earth moved. Sismondi is a Protestant and a Republican; he deems kings and nobles are useHis political less excrescences upon society; and opinions. his political beau ideal is a collection of republics, with no established faith, and held together, like the American Union, only by the slender bond of a federal alliance. It is from the influence, therefore, of no prepossession against the present tendency all over the civil-writers, they suggest a doubt whether the sense ized world to popular institutions, that he has so strongly and ably at the same time inculcated the doctrine that this tendency is fraught with the most serious evils which at present desolate, and in the end will occasion the entire ruin of Europe. These evils, according to him, do not arise from forms of government, nor are they to be ascribed to faulty legislation; they originate in the nature of things, and are the direct consequence of that state of society which is generally considered as fraught with unlimited blessings. The accumulation of capital, the increase of machinery, the spread of manufactures, the growth of large towns, the cheapening of provisions, the free circulation of labor in an old community, which are commonly regarded as the surest symptoms of general prosperity, in his view are the unmistakable indications of social disease and the prognostics of approaching ruin. In them he sees the sad effects of the undue preponderence of capital, and the desperate consequences of the principles of unlimited competition and free trade, when applied to the laboring classes of the community. Probably there is no disinterested person who contemplates the present state of society, whether in France or the British Islands, who will hesitate to admit that these views are well founded, and that the causes of decay which proved fatal to the colossal fabric of the Roman empire are even now in full activity in both countries. But they do not warrant the gloomy and desponding conclusions which Sismondi draws from them, any more than the increasing ills which accumulate round individual old age justify melancholy views in regard to the human

31.

Although brothers, belonging to the same school of history, equally fond of antiquity and adopting the same style Their oppoof composition, the thoughts of these site princitwo very remarkable men are widely ples. different from each other. Auguste, the author of the Conquest of England by the Normans, and of the Esssays on the History of France, belongs to the Liberal school; he is almost a republican in politics, and, like others of his sect, any thing but strongly influenced by religious impressions. But he is humane and philanthropic, and not eminently dramatic, but often pathetic, in his narrative of important events. Amadée is the very reverse in thought of his brother; he is eminently Christian in his ideas, and has directed his great powers with remarkable success to The evils arising from the sway of capi- the illustration from historical and antiquarian tal and the principle of competition to the great sources of the blessings which Christianity has bulk of the community are not imaginary, but conferred upon mankind. Upon considering his they are partial, and are the means by which luminous writings, and comparing them with Providence, at the time when such a change the arrogant dogmatism of the Roman Catholic has become necessary, checks the growth of writers at an earlier period, which all the eloaged communities, and provides for the disper-quence of Bossuet could scarcely disguise, it is sion of the human race. He who is not convinced of this by the simultaneous growth of the evils in the Old World and the opening of the reserve treasures of California and Aus1 Sismondi, tralia in the New, would not be perEssais Soci- suaded though one rose from the ales, 3 vols. dead.1

race.

The two THIERRYS belong to the same school 30. as Sismondi, but they have eschewed Auguste and the chief faults which have impeded Amadée the popularity of his voluminous Thierry. publications. We perceive in them the same untiring industry and patient research by which the historian of the Italian republics is distinguished, and the same combination of antiquarian lore and accuracy of fact with general views and philosophic thought, which render his works so valuable. But the method

impossible to avoid seeing how much the cause of true religion has been advanced by the experience of suffering, and the wrench to general thought induced by the Revolution; and on how much more solid a basis the truth of Christianity is now erected than it was in the days of papal bulls and sacerdotal domination.

32.

MICHAUD belongs to the same school, both in religious thought and historical composition, as Amadée Thierry, and he is an Michaud, author of very great merit. His History of the Crusades, in six volumes, is by far the best narrative that has yet appeared of those inemorable wars; and although it is not free from the great defect of the antiquarian school, in being somewhat overloaded with long quotations from monkish chronicles or contemporary annalists, it promises to be the most dur