MADAME DE STAEL

[BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, JUNE 1837]

AMIDST the deluge of new and ephemeral publications under which the press both in France and England is groaning, and the woful depravity of public taste, in all branches of literature, which in the former country has followed the Revolution of the Three Glorious Days, it is not the least important part of the duty of all those who have any share, however inconsiderable, in the direction of the objects to which public thought is to be applied, to recur from time to time to the great and standard works of a former age; and from amidst the dazzling light of passing meteors in the lower regions of the atmosphere, to endeavour to direct the public gaze to those fixed luminaries whose radiance in the higher heavens shines, and ever will shine, in imperishable lustre. From our sense of the importance and utility of this attempt, we are not to be deterred by the common remark, that these authors are in everybody's hands; that their works are read at school, and their names have become as household sounds. We know that many things are read at school which are forgotten at college; and many things learned at college which are unhappily and permanently discarded in later years; and that there are many authors whose names are as household sounds, whose works for that very reason are as a strange and unknown tongue. Every one has heard of Racine and Molière, of Bossuet and Fénélon, of Voltaire and Rousseau, of Chateaubriand and Madame de Stael, of Pascal and Rabelais. We would beg to ask even our best informed and most learned readers, with how many of their works they are really familiar; how many of their felicitous expressions have sunk into their

recollections; how many of their ideas are engraven on their memory? Others may possess more retentive memories, or more extensive reading than we do; but we confess, when we apply such a question, even to the constant study of thirty years, we feel not a little mortified at the time which has been misapplied, and the brilliant ideas once obtained from others which have now faded from the recollection, and should rejoice much to obtain from others that retrospect of past greatness which we propose ourselves to lay before our

readers.

Every one now is so constantly in the habit of reading the new publications, of devouring the fresh productions of the press, that we forget the extraordinary superiority of standard works; and are obliged to go back to the studies of our youth for that superlative enjoyment which arises from the perusal of authors, where every sentence is thought and often every word conception; where new trains of contemplation or emotion are awakened in every page, and the volume is closed almost every minute to meditate on the novelty or justice of the reflections which arise from its study. And it is not on the first perusal of these authors that this exquisite pleasure is obtained. In the heyday of youth and strength, when imagination is ardent, and the world unknown, it is the romance of the story, or the general strain of the argument which carries the reader on, and many of the finest and most spiritual reflections are overlooked or unappreciated. But in later years, when life has been experienced, and joy and sorrow felt, when the memory is stored with recollections, and the imagination with images, it is reflection and observation which constitute the chief attraction in composition.

The two great eras of French prose literature are those of Louis XIV. and the Revolution. If the former can boast of Bossuet, the latter can appeal to Chateaubriand; if the former still shines in the purest lustre in Fénélon, the latter may boast the more fervent pages and varied genius of De Stael; if the former is supreme in the tragic and comic muse, and can array Racine, Corneille, and Molière, against the transient Lilliputians of the romantic school, the latter can show in the poetry and even the prose of Lamartine a condensation of feeling, a depth of pathos and energy of

thought, which can never be reached but in an age which has undergone the animating episodes, the heart-stirring feelings, consequent on social convulsion. In the branches of literature which depend on the relations of men to each other-history, politics, historical philosophy and historical romance, the superiority of the modern school is so prodigious, that it is impossible to find a parallel to it in former days; and even the dignified language and eagle glance of the Bishop of Meaux sink into insignificance, compared to the vast ability which, in inferior minds, experience and actual suffering have brought to bear on the investigation of public affairs. Modern writers were for long at a loss to understand the cause which had given such superior pathos, energy, and practical wisdom to the historians of antiquity; but the French Revolution at once explained the mystery. When modern times were brought into collision with the passions and the suffering consequent on democratic ascendency and social convulsion, they were not long of feeling the truths which experience had taught to ancient times, and acquiring the power of vivid description and condensed yet fervent narrative by which the great historians of antiquity are characterised.

At the head of the modern prose writers of France, we place Madame de Stael, Chateaubriand, and Guizot. The general style of the two first and the most imaginative of these writers-De Stael and Chateaubriand-is essentially different from that of Bossuet, Fénélon, and Massillon. We have no longer either the thoughts, the language, or the images of these great and dignified writers. With the pompous grandeur of the Grande Monarque; with the awful splendour of the palace, and the irresistible power of the throne; with the superb magnificence of Versailles, its marbles, halls, and forests of statues, have passed away the train of thought by which the vices and corruption then chiefly prevalent in society were combated by these worthy soldiers of the militia of Christ. Strange to say, the ideas of that despotic age are more condemnatory of princes, more eulogistic of the people, more confirmatory of the principles which, if pushed to their legitimate consequences, lead to democracy, than those of the age when the sovereignty of the people was actually established. In their eloquent

declamations the wisdom, justice, and purity of the masses are the constant subject of eulogy; almost all social and political evils are traced to the corruptions of courts and the vices of kings. The applause of the people, the condemnation of rulers, in Telemachus, often resembles rather the frothy declamations of the Tribune in favour of the sovereign multitude, than the severe lessons addressed by a courtly prelate to the heir of a despotic throne. With a fearless courage, worthy of the highest commendation, and very different from the base adulation of modern times to the Baal of popular power, Bossuet, Massillon, and Bourdaloue incessantly rang in the ears of their courtly auditory the equality of mankind in the sight of heaven, and the awful words of judgment to come. These imaginary and Utopian effusions now excite a smile, even in the most youthful student; and a suffering age, taught by the experienced evils of democratic ascendency, has now learned to appreciate, as they deserve, the profound and caustic sayings in which Aristotle, Sallust, and Tacitus have delivered to future ages the condensed wisdom on the instability and tyranny of the popular rule, which ages of calamity had brought home to the sages of antiquity.

In Madame de Stael and Chateaubriand we have incomparably more originality and variety of thought; far more just and experienced views of human affairs; far more condensed wisdom, which the statesman and the philosopher may treasure in their memories, than in the great writers of the age of Louis XIV. We see at once in their productions that we are dealing with those who speak from experience of human affairs; to whom years of suffering have brought centuries of wisdom; and who in the stern school of adversity have learned to abjure both much of the fanciful El Dorado speculations of preceding philosophy, and the perilous effusions of succeeding republicanism. Though the one was by birth and habit an aristocrat of the ancient and now decaying school, and the other, a Liberal nursed at the feet of the great Gamaliel of the Revolution, yet there is no material difference in their political conclusions; so completely does a close observation of the progress of a revolution induce the same conclusions in minds of the highest stamp, with whatever early prepossessions the survey may

have been originally commenced. The Dix Années d'Exil, and the Observations on the French Revolution might have been written by Chateaubriand, and Madame de Stael would have little wherefrom to dissent in the Monarchie selon la Charte, or the later political writings of her illustrious rival.

It is by their works of imagination, taste, and criticism, however, that these immortal writers are principally celebrated, and it is with them that we propose to commence this critical survey. Their names are universally known— Corinne, Delphine, De l'Allemagne, the Dix Années d'Exil, and De la Litterature, are as familiar in sound, at least, to our ears, as the Génie du Christianisme, the Itinéraire, the Martyrs, Atala et Réné, of the far travelled pilgrim of expiring feudalism are to our memories. Each has beauties of the very highest cast in this department, and yet their excellences are so various, that we know not to which to award the palm. If driven to discriminate between them, we should say that De Stael has more sentiment, Chateaubriand more imagination; that the former has deeper knowledge of human feelings, and the latter more varied and animated pictures of human manners; that the charm of the first consists chiefly in the just and profound views of life, its changes and emotions, with which her works abound, and the fascination of the last in the brilliant phantasmagoria of actual scenes, impressions, and events which his writings exhibit. No one can exceed Madame de Stael in the expression of the sentiment or poetry of nature, or the development of the varied and storied associations which historical scenes or monuments never fail to awaken in the cultivated mind; but in the delineation of the actual features she exhibits, or the painting of the various and gorgeous scenery or objects she presents, she is greatly inferior to the author of the Genius of Christianity.

She

speaks emotion to the heart, not pictures to the eye. Chateaubriand, on the other hand, has dipped his pencil in the finest and most radiant hues of nature. With a skill surpassing even that of the Great Magician of the North, he depicts all the most splendid scenes of both hemispheres ; and, seizing with the inspiration of genius on the really characteristic features of the boundless variety of objects he