hundred others might be added, of Mademoiselles de Montpen→ sier, Mesdames de Nemours, de Caylus, d'Epinay, Campan, and de Genlis.

Whether a multiplicity of such works tells for or against the intellectual taste of the era and country in which they make their appearance, is a question which we are by no

means

called upon to decide. It is evident, beyond the possibility of contradiction, that memoirs, fully and impartially composed, must be of eminent service in illustrating the manners, habits, and opinions of the period to which they relate; and nothing is more desirable, than that the history of a nation should roll on from age to age, having memoirs as its attendant satellites, both giving and receiving light at every moment of its progress. But the reminiscences and diaries of individuals, unless they are indeed excellent in their kind, have a natural tendency to foster the love of mere literary gossip; and even encourage that pernicious appetite for scandal and private libels, "which grows by what it feeds on." Nor is it at all necessary, as is now generally supposed, that memoir writers should give the best and most authentic accounts of passing events; or possess the justest acquaintance with the principles and springs of human action. An historian, we allow, may be placed at two great a distance from the scene which he has to represent; he may depend too entirely upon philosophical and comprehensive views; he may look at things too much in the gross, and attribute them too exclusively to great and general causes: but the memoir-writer, on the other hand, labours under an equal disadvantage in being placed too near; he is too much mixed up with particular occurrences, and too much connected with a particular set of persons, to grasp the whole range of circumstances which move forward the political machine :—and much less is he enabled to judge of their relative importance: he is apt to make the affairs of a nation turn upon some minute accident altogether inadequate to the effect produced: with him, if he has by chance any insight into the secrets of a court, or the intrigues of a cabinet, some petty quarrel, or intrigue, the indigestion of a king, or the caprice of a king's mistress, is all in all; while he overlooks the general aspect of the times, the temper and feelings, the physical, moral, and intellectual condition of the people at large. Upon the whole, then, since the historian and the memoirwriter are equally liable to a false bias, although of a nature completely opposite, the safer way is to take them together, to search for the truth between the two; and to regard the works of each as at once a check and commentary upon the works of the other. To prevent ourselves from being imposed upon by

some philosophical romance under the name of history, and also from being deceived by some narrow and partial picture in the shape of memoirs, we should bear in mind, that few striking occurrences happen in the world without having at the same time their ultimate and their immediate cause: that the former, which comes under the cognisance of the biographer, is often trivial in the extreme; but that the latter, which belongs to the province of the historian, must be in almost every case both wide and deep. We know that the match, or spark, may produce the mightiest conflagration; but this can only happen, when the materials of combustion have been already prepared and heaped together.

Be this, however, as it may, the memoirs now before us, the publication of which has lately been brought to a conclusion, form a considerable and valuable addition to the existing stock. That the well-wishers of Madame de Genlis should have been anxious to prevent their appearance, we are not at all surprised at; for it must of necessity be a delicate and perilous undertaking in any person whatever, and more especially in a woman, who has attracted a large share of attention in more ways than one, to cause her journal to be printed, before death has closed her own ears against the criticisms which it may occasion, and during the lifetime of many of the characters upon whom her strictures are passed. We can imagine no better way to provoke enemies, and dissatisfy friends. But this is a matter which regards only Madame de Genlis and her family: we, as reviewers, have more concern with the interest of the work, than with the prudence or imprudence of the writer.

Upon the former point there can be little difference of opinion. It would seem impossible, in fact, that these memoirs should not be a production of great and varied interest, if we were simply to reflect, that they comprehend a period of no less than sixty years; and those years, too, more pregnant with vast and extraordinary events, than any era, of the same length, which has occurred within the memory of man. Madame de Genlis is now an octogenarian, and therefore too old to care about her age being known. She has, moreover, been thrown into a strange diversity of situations, and witnessed no ordinary number of both public and domestic vicissitudes; she has travelled, and even resided, in all the principal countries of Europe, in France, England, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany: she has moved in several spheres the most distant from each other; and been acquainted, more or less intimately, with individuals in every class of which modern society is composed. To few persons could we apply with more justice the often

quoted words "mores hominum multorum vidit, et urbes:" and she is unquestionably an acute observer, and a lively describer of what she sees. The advantage of these circumstances is observable throughout her memoirs, in graphic and striking delineations of men and manners; in instructive details and comparisons between customs which have become obsolete, and others by which they have been supplanted; in free and oftentimes caustic remarks upon a multitude of distinguished persons, from those who flourished at the end, and even almost in the middle of the eighteenth century, down to the journalists and poets of the present day, such as Fievée, Chateaubriand, and De la Martine. Another charm in the "Memoirs of Madame de Genlis" is, that she evidently writes from her own impressions. She throws her heart upon the paper, and gives the world an authentic picture of herself and her opinions. Her character, too, is exactly of that kind of which a record is most curious. With great talents, great accomplishments, and many amiable qualities, she possesses a quite sufficient qualification of peculiarities and faults, to prevent us from feeling what has been somewhere strangely called "the insipidity of perfection."

There are, however, it must be confessed, many puerilities, or rather if we may use the word without offence, many anilities in these volumes: there is a good deal of that garrulity which ought to be confined to the tea-table, instead of loading the press; there is much which is tedious and uninteresting to an English reader, from ignorance of the parties who are mentioned; and not a little which must be tiresome to every one, except Madame de Genlis and her immediate friends. For instance, we have no doubt that many trifles "of her own invention and manufacture" were very pretty and ingenious, but we think that she might have spared us some accounts of the admiration which they excited: we care still less about her petty misunderstandings and reconciliations with her female acquaintances; and we could very well have dispensed with sundry minute relations of presents given and received; as how she exchanged a work-box for a desk, or made a basket for a neighbour, and accepted a fire-screen in return. Alas! we unsentimental critics have but small sympathy with the delight which can be caused "by an elegant inlaid work of flowers;" or even "a magnificient bénitier of crystal covered with gilding, amethysts, and other ornaments."

It is, however, high time to come to particulars. The commencement of the publication is taken up, as might be expected, with the details of her infancy and youth; her various perils in falling into the water and into the fire; her early occupations,

amusements and impressions; the developement of her feelings and talents; her marriage, while yet extremely young; her private successes and triumphs in society; and the happy years which she spent in comparative seclusion, before she had either written about "the dangers of celebrity," or courted celebrity and its dangers in her own person. This portion of her work is, perhaps, the most pleasing of the whole: it breathes, we think, a peculiar air of freshness and grace. We smile at the whimsical freaks and wild adventures of a volatile and accomplished girl; and we return to them with renewed satisfaction, after being fatigued with the regrets and sorrows, the intrigues and heartburnings, which embittered the after-life of Madame de Genlis, and casts a tinge of gloom over the latter volumes of her memoirs. We believe that the first two volumes are more familiar to English readers than the rest, from having been before them for a longer time; yet we cannot refrain from giving a few

extracts:

"I remained only a few days at Genlis; I was there entertained with pond-fishing. Unluckily I went with little white embroidered shoes, and when I got to the edge of the pond, I slipped into the mud: my brother-in-law came to my assistance, and remarking my shoes, called me a fine lady from Paris, which vexed me extremely; for having been brought up in a country house, I had announced all the pretensions of a person to whom all sorts of rural amusements are familiar. I replied with some warmth to the pleasantries of my brother-in-law; but hearing all the neighbours assembled at the fishing, repeating that I was a fine lady from Paris, my vexation became extreme. So stooping down, I picked up a small fish about the length of my finger, and swallowed it alive, saying, This is to show that I am a fine lady from Paris.' I have done many other foolish things in my life, but certainly nothing so whimsical as this. Every one was confounded. M. de Genlis scolded me a great deal, and terrified me by saying, that the fish might live and enlarge in my stomach, a fright of which I did not get rid for several months."

There is also a strange story, well worthy of perusal, of her taking a journey in company with a female friend almost as giddy as herself disguised in male attire, having her boots stuffed out with straw, and making love with equal gallantry and éclat to the serving maids of a provincial inn; but we must content ourselves with the following anecdote, describing a frolic in which she and her sister-in-law thought proper to indulge :

"There was at Genlis the largest bathing-machine I ever saw; four people could easily have bathed in it. One day I proposed to my sister-in-law, that we should both bathe ourselves in it in milk, and that we should go into the neighbourhood and buy all the farmers' milk. We dressed ourselves in the disguise of peasant girls, and mounted on asses, led by John the carman, my first riding

master, we left Genlis at six in the morning, and went to the distance of two leagues all round, to bespeak all the milk at the little farmhouses, desiring them to bring it next morning to the château de Genlis. In some cottages we were afraid of being recognised; we waited for John at a little distance, and entered into all the others. We took a milk bath, which is the most delightful thing in the world ; we had caused the surface of the bath to be strewed over with rose leaves, and we remained two hours in that charming bath.' "-vol. i,

These passages afford a sufficient insight into the early character of the writer; and there are many others which exhibit a no less curious picture of the general mode of life which was led by the higher classes in France before the revolution. They are well worthy of an attentive perusal; and it requires but little skill in the study of human nature to be enabled to trace most of the foibles which were remarkable in Madame de Genlis, to the defects of her education, and the factitious habits of the circle into which she was introduced almost from the nursery. Instruction appears to have been bestowed upon her, not so much with a view to utility as display: everything around her was forced and artificial; and we, therefore, can feel no surprise in finding, that with her quickness of parts, and liveliness of imagination, she became, while yet a mere child, the representative of love in comic operas, the improvisatrice of imaginary dialogues, and the youthful heroine of a saloon. The romantic enthusiasm which she herself mentions on various occasions in her memoirs, the "unbridled fancies" remarked by her husband, which were inherent in her constitution, the vanity and thirst for éclat, from which no one is entirely exempt, were all stimulated, rather than restrained. Poetry and music were her employments, as they were her passion. She saw around her a system of elaborate trifling and ambitious frivolity; and while it must be allowed, that there was at that period in France a great deal of refinement and grace, of politeness, and even kindliness, there was still more of idle affectation, and empty parade: even the offices of piety had an inconceivable mixture of the theatrical and the profane, public worship had its ostentation, and religion had its romance. It was a natural consequence of all this, that Madame de Genlis, while she was only prevented by her natural powers of mind from becoming what Molière calls " un ambigu de précieuse et de coquette," directed her first efforts to be the admiration of a sphere, in which it seemed the whole business of domestic life to act private plays, and write "vers de société."

For intellectual instruction, as has been the case with many other distinguished authors, she was indebted chiefly to herself. Her numerous acquirements were, with some inconsiderable