fa mère, ce qu'elle a de confolant et d'aimable; le premier lui apprenoit, comment il la faut révérer, celle-ci comment il la faut chérir. De ce concours de foins, il réfulta un caractère courageux, fenfible, qui, réuniffant l'extraordinaire énergie de Springer à l'angélique douceur de Phédora, fut tout à la fois noble et fier comme tout ce qui vient de l'honneur, et tendre et dévoué comme tout ce qui vient de l'amour.' p. 9, 10.

• Elevée dans ces bois fauvages depuis l'âge de quatre ans, la jeune Elifabeth ne connoiffoit point d'are patrie: elle trouvoit dans celle-ci de ces beautés que la nature offre encore même dans les lieux qu'elle a le plus maltraités, et de ces plaifirs fimples que les cœurs innocents goû tent partout. Elle s'amufoit à grimper fur les rochers qui bordoient le lac, pour y prendre des œufs d'éperviers et de vautours blancs qui y font leurs nids pendant l'été. Souvent elle attrapoit des ramiers au filet et en rempliffoit une volière; d'autres fois elle pêchoit des corralins qui vont par bancs et dont les écailles pourprées, collées les unes contre les autres, paroiffoient à travers les eaux du lac comme des couches de feu recouvertes d'un argent liquide. Jamais durant fon, heureuse enfance, il ne lui vint dans la penfée qu'il pouvoit y avoir un fort plus fortuné que le fien. Sa fanté fe fortifioit par le grand air, fa taille fe développoit par l'exercice, et fur fon vifage oú repofoit la paix de l'innocence, or voyoit chaque jour naître un agrément de plus. Ainfi, loin du monde et des hommes, croiffoit en beauté cette jeune vierge pour les yeux feuls de fes parents, pour l'unique charme de leur cœur, femblable à la fleur du défert qui ne s'épanouit qu'en préfence du foleil, et ne fe pare pas moins de vives couleurs, quoiqu'elle ne puiffe être vue que par l'altre à qui elle doit la vie.' p. 15, 16.

Such were the virtues formed in the depth of Siberian dreariness, as some of the sweetest flowers of spring seem to have been nursed in the bosom of winter. We may add, that with the character of the heroine, that of the composition itself corresponds; energetic, enthusiastic;-but nothing can exceed the feminine delicacy that every where shades and refines it. What, indeed, but a dress of the most vestal white would beome the saintly figure of Elisabeth? Our fair author is not one who loves to excite attention by a display of the ignoble or the unholy passions. Unfortunately, these must, in a measure, enter every picture of life and manners; but it is only when they must enter, that Madame Cottin admits them. They are shown by her, but not so prominently as to mingle with those gentler and more agreeable visions that fill the sight. They come, as flying clouds, to throw a shadow over the current; not as a miry infusion to sully its clearness. From the beginning of the narrative to its close, the thoughts, the expressions, the descriptions, all are limpid purity. To this delicacy of principle, which is virtue, the author of Elisabeth adds delicacy of hand, which is taste. Her writing has a great deal of that quality, which, when ascribed to the countenance,

countenance, is called expression. It implies, not exactly, strong sensations strongly signified; but nice and sensitive perceptions on every occasion, however common,-and looks that speakingly reflect them a mind quickly seeing, and as quickly seen; a clear but artless indication of emotions, natural but not vulgar. It is certainly possible for writing to convey the idea of all this, though it may be the production of deep deliberation. No author, however, could so write, who was not well acquainted with human nature; by which is to be understood, not what, by a very complimentary phrase, we call knowledge of the world; but only a vivid conception of the genuine feelings of the mind in ordinary situations. This exquisiteness of tact, this play of features, belong to the composition of Madame Cottin: perhaps they may fairly be considered as characteristic of the best authors of her sex. In the portraiture of deep and tragic passion, men may possibly excel women; but surely it is a fact, and no fancy, that women understand better, and pencil out more graceruily, those finer and more fugitive impressions which come under the description of sentiment. Even the countrymen of Rousseau are apt to recommend some of their fair writers as the best models of the sentimental style. They find in them more truth, nature, gentleness; less of exaggeration and mannerism; sensibilities less morbid, and language refined without bordering on effeminacy.

It would be a very interesting inquiry, whether this power of susceptibility in the female mind, a power made up, as we have mentioned it to be, is original, or formed by circumstances? We certainly do believe it to be in a great measure original; and yet there are many things in the situation of women, in the ground which they occupy in society, that seem to assist nature in the production of the effect described. Their conscious inferiority of personal strength must of itself dispose them to a cultivation of the finer and lovelier feelings; and this disposition is much aided by their exemption from those employments which hackney the minds of the other sex, and have a tendency to wear down all the minuter feelings. In consequence, too, of their domestic life, that reciprocation of social kindnesses, which is only a recreation to men, is to women in some sense a business. It is their field-duty, from which household cares are their repose. Men do not seek the intercourse of society as a friend to be cultivated, but merely throw themselves on its bosom to sleep, Women, on the contrary, resort to it with recollections undistracted, and curiosity all alive. Thus, that which we enjoy and forget, keeps their attention and their feelings in constant play, and gradually matures their perceptions into instinct.

Τα

To similar causes, the softer sex owe their exquisite acquaintance with life and manners; their fine discernment of those smaller peculiarities of character which throw so much light and shade over the surface of ordinary society. Of the deeper varieties of the mind they know little; because they have not been accustomed to watch its movements when agitated by the vexing disquietudes of business, or ploughed up into frightful inequalities by the tempests of publie life. It is human nature in a calm, or ruffled only into gentle undulation; it is the light restlessness of the domestic and the social passions; it is the fire-side character of mankind which forms their chief study, and with which, of course, they are perfectly intimate.

Consider also that class of domestic occupations which concerns the care of children. Peace be to those wretched votaries of dissipation, if indeed they can find peace, who, all selfishness, resign their offspring to fortune, apparently not as pledges, but as presents. Of these we say nothing; but with respect to the majority of the middling classes, there can be no question that, either as mothers, or as elder sisters, the female sex are infinitely more conversant with children than the other. Trace the effects naturally produced on their minds by this sort of society, for surely it may be honoured with that appellation. What habits of quick and intelligent observation must be formed, by the employment of watching over interesting helplessness, and construing ill-explained wants! How must the perpetual contemplation of unsophisticated nature, reflect back on the dispositions of the observer a kind of simplicity and ingenuousness! What an insight into the native constitution of the human mind must it give, to inspect it in the very act of concoction! It is as if a chemist should examine

-young diamonds in their infant dew.'

Not that mothers will be apt to indulge in delusive dreams of the perfection of human nature and human society. They see too much of the waywardness of infants to imagine them perfect. They neither find them nor think them angels, though they often call them so. But whatever is bad or good in them, they behold untrammelled and undisguised. All this must, in some degree, contribute to form those peculiarities in the female character, of which we are attempting to follow out the natural history.

The same peculiarities, may, in part, perhaps, be traced up to the system of European manners, which allows to women a free association with the world, while it enjoins on them the condition of an unimpeachable strictness of conduct. However loosely the fulfilment of this condition may be exacted in some countries of Europe, the system is still pretty extensively acted upon; and

it

it doubtless tends to produce in the sex a habit of circumspection, an alarmed sense of self-respect, and a scrupulous tenderness of that feeling, which is to conscience what decorum is to virtue. But these qualities seem to be intimately allied with delicacy of perception and of mind. In fact, in the western world, bienséance has become (if we may use a very hard and workman-like term), the professional virtue of the fair, and it is therefore that they excel in it. On the whole, if it should be asked, why women are more refined than men? it may be asked in return, why civilized men are more refined than barbarians? It is society which has polished the savage. It is the task of presiding over the society of society, the more civilized part of civilized life, which has so highly polished, and thrown so fine a finish over the women.

Is it not then wonde:ful to hear some men wonder, that female minds should be so quick of comprehension on common subjects, and yet so much averse to profound disquisition; so intelligent, so susceptible of impressions, in familiar discourse, and yet, in politics so dull, in metaphysics so tasteless? They wonder at all this as inconsistent; but the wonder and the inconsistency would be, if the matter were otherwise. We are all adroit at that which we have practised; and these sagacious wonderers may as well consider, why many a sage, who has mines of thought and magazines of information sufficient to supply the intellectual commerce of a kingdom, should yet be miserably clumsy and stupid at the retail traffic of ordinary chit-chat; or why many a philosopher who can determine to a minute the curvature of a comet's path, should be utterly unable to curve his own person into a tolerable bow. From these, however, or any of the preceding remarks, it were strange to conclude that women are to be repelled from the severer studies, as if ignorance were the first of female qualifications. The remarks would rather justify an opposite conclusion. Providence has clearly assigned, to the one sex the forensic, to the other the domestic occupations; and before so obvious a difference of destination can be overlooked, not only must all right principles and feelings be abandoned, but the essence of things must almost be changed. Till this crisis occurs, women will be the tutelary powers of domestic and social enjoyment; and so long, if there be any truth in the foregoing reflections, they will retain their present agrémens. To embellish their minds, therefore, with an ampler furniture of knowledge, would only confer on them the means of decorating with additional effect their proper sphere; for the muses can never, of themselves, be at war either with the graces or with the virtues. And yet, after all, there must be an original susceptibility in the female mind, which no education can give, and which hardly

any

any could entirely destroy. Suppose a country, in which all the feebler and more ricketty males should be carefully culled out, and instead of being committed to the river, as they would have been in Sparta, should be cooped up in drawing-rooms, secluded from public affairs, forbidden the gallery of the House of Commons, devoted to the household deities, and in all respects subjected to those laws of conduct, which opinion has, in this country, imposed on women. There can be no rational doubt, but that this order of beings would make a considerable approach to the female character; but surely it would prove but a sorry concern. They would turn out, it is much to be feared, a mere corporation of tailors; sad men, and worse women. Many of them would scribble novels; but which of them would prove such a novelist as Madame Cottin? Many a tolerable Baucis or Mopsa should we find among them; but which of them would resemble Elisabeth?

The mention of this last name, recals us from a digression' which must have fatigued the reader; and without, therefore, inflicting on him the further detention of a tedious apology, we will abruptly hasten to the discharge of the duty immediately pressing upon us. We are fearful, however, of spoiling the story for him, were we to give a complete abridgment of it; and shall therefore prefer the method of exciting his curiosity by drawing out an analysis of the first part only.

Elisabeth, in infancy, was happy; but, as she advanced in years, her father's melancholy and her mother's tears could not escape her notice. She inquired the cause of their sorrows, and did not understand the reply, when she was told that they mourned for their country. Nothing more was revealed to her, but she became sad. She had, indeed, no griefs of her own; or rather she would have had none, if she had not regarded her parents as a dearer self. She forgot all her innocent pleasures, her birds. and her flowers, and was absorbed in meditation. One single thought occupied her abroad, at home, at night, by day : but it was religiously concealed; it filled her mind, but was not suffered to overflow.

Qui elle vouloit partir, elle vouloit s'arracher des bras de fes parents pour aller feule à pied jufqu'à Pétersbourg, demander la grâce de fon père: tel étoit le hardi deffein qu'elle avoit conçu, telle étoit la téméraire entreprise dont ne s'effrayoit point une jeune fille timide. En vain elle entrevoyoit de grands obftacles; la force de fa volonté, le courage de fon cœur, et fa confiance en Dieu, la raffuroient et lui répondoient qu'elle triompheroit de tout. '

But, how execute this daring project? How perform the circuit of half Europe? How find her road without a guide? How

traverse