conquest of the world. Our curiosity has always been very highly excited by the accounts of this singular people; and we cannot help thinking that, one day or another, when they are more full of opium than usual, they will run a muck from Cape Comorin to the Caspian.

MADAME DE STAEL'S DELPHINE.*

THIS dismal trash, which has nearly dislocated the jaws of every critic among us with gaping, has so alarmed Buonaparte, that he has seized the whole impression, sent Madame de Staël out of Paris, and, for aught we know, sleeps in a night-cap of steel and dagger-proof blankets. To us it appears rather an attack upon the Ten Commandments than the government of Buonaparte, and calculated not so much to enforce the rights of the Bourbons, as the benefits of adultery, murder, and a great number of other vices, which have been, some how or other, strangely neglected in this country, and too much so (according to the apparent opinion of Madame de Staël) even in France.

It happens, however, fortunately enough, that her book is as dull as it could have been if her intentions had been good; for wit, dexterity, and the pleasant energies of the mind, seldom rank themselves on the side of virtue and social order; while vice is spiritual, eloquent, and alert, ever choice in expression, happy in allusion, and judicious in arrangement.

The story is simply this:-Delphine, a rich young widow, presents her cousin, Matilda de Vernon, with a considerable estate, in order to enable her to marry Leonce Mondeville. To this action she is excited by the arts and the intrigues of Madame de Vernon, a hackneyed Parisian lady, who hopes, by this marriage, to be able to discharge her numerous and pressing debts. Leonce, who, like all other heroes of novels, has fine limbs and fine qualities, comes to Paris-dislikes Matilda-falls in love with Delphine, Delphine with him; and they are upon the eve of jilting poor Matilda, when, from some false reports spread abroad respecting the character of Delphine (which are aggravated by her own impru dences, and by the artifices of Madame de Vernon), Leonce, not in

Delphine. By Madame de Stac! Holstein. London, Mawman. 6 vols. 12m). Ed. Rev., April, 1803.

a fit of honesty, bit of revenge, marries the lady whom he came to marry. Soon after, Madame de Vernon dies-discovers the artifices by which she had prevented the union of Leonce and Delphine-and then, after this catastrophe, which ought to have terminated the novel, come two long volumes of complaint and despair. Delphine becomes a nun-runs away from the nunnery with Leonce, who is taken by some French soldiers, upon the supposition that he has been serving in the French emigrant army against his country-is shot, and upon his dead body falls Delphine, as dead as he.

Making every allowance for reading this book in a translation, and in a very bad translation, we cannot but deem it a heavy performance. The incidents are vulgar; the characters vulgar, too, except those of Delphine and Madame de Vernon. Madame de Staël has not the artifice to hide what is coming. In travelling through a flat country, or a flat book, we see our road before us for half the distance we are going. There are no agreeable sinuosities, and no speculations whether we are to ascend next, or descend; what new sight we are to enjoy, or to which side we are to bend. Leonce is robbed and half-murdered; the apothecary of the place is certain he will not live; we were absolutely certain that he would live, and could predict to an hour the time of his recovery. In the same manner we could have prophesied every event of the book a whole volume before its occurrence.

This novel is a perfect Alexandrian. The last two volumes are redundant, and drag their wounded length: it should certainly have terminated where the interest ceases, at the death of Madame de Vernon; but, instead of this, the scene-shifters come and pick up the dead bodies, wash the stage, sweep it, and do everything which the timely fall of the curtain should have excluded from the sight, and left to the imagination of the audience. We humbly apprehend, that young gentlemen do not, in general, make their tutors the confidants of their passion; at least we can find no rule of that kind laid down either by Miss Hamilton or Miss Edgeworth, in their treatises on education. The tutor of Leonce is Mr. Barton, a grave old gentleman, in a peruke and snuff-coloured clothes. Instead of writing to this solemn personage about second causes, the ten categories, and the eternal fitness of things, the yong lover raves to him, for whole pages, about the white neck

and auburn hair of lis Delphine; and, shame to tell! the liquorish old pedagogue seems to think these amorous ebullitions the pleasantest sort of writing in usum Delphini that he has yet met with. By altering one word, and making only one false quantity,* we shall change the rule of Horace to

"Nec febris intersit nisi dignus vindice rɔdus
Inciderit.".

Delphine and Leonce have eight very bad typhus fevers between them, besides hæmoptoe, hemorrhage, deliquium animi, singultus, hysteria, and faminei ululatus, or screams innumerable. Now, that there should be a reasonable allowance of sickness in every novel, we are willing to admit, and will cheerfully permit the heroine to be once given over, and at the point of death; but we cannot consent that the interest which ought to be excited by the feelings of the mind should be transferred to the sufferings of the body, and a crisis of perspiration be substituted for a crisis of passion. Let us see difficulties overcome, if our approbation is required; we cannot grant it to such cheap and sterile artifices as these.

The characters in this novel are all said to be drawn from real life; and the persons for whom they are intended are loudly whispered at Paris. Most of them we have forgotten; but Delphine is said to be intended for the authoress, and Madame de Vernon (by a slight sexual metamorphosis) for Talleyrand, minister of the French republic for foreign affairs. As this lady (once the friend of the authoress) may probably exercise a considerable influence over the destinies of this country, we shall endeavour to make our readers a little better acquainted with her; but we must first remind them that she was once a bishop, a higher dignity in the church than was ever attained by any of her sex since the days of Pope Joan; and that though she swindles Delphine out of her estate with a considerable degree of address, her dexterity some

* Perhaps a fault of all others which the English are least disposed to pardon. A young man who, on a public occasion, makes a false quantity at the outset of life, can seldom or never get over it.-Author's Note.

† Madame de Staël, on meeting Talleyrand at an evening party after the publication of this book, was addressed by the ci-devant Bishop with “Eh, Madame, on dit que nous sommes tous les deux dans votre livre deguisés en femmes."

116

IMMORALITY OF A BOOK.

times fails her, as in the memorable instance of the American commissioners. Madame de Staël gives the following description of this pastoral metropolitan female:

"Though she is at least forty, she still appears charming even among the young and beautiful of her own sex. The paleness of her complexion, the slight relaxation of her features, indicate the languor of indisposition, and not the decay of years; the easy negligence of her dress accords with this impres sion. Every one concludes, that when her health is recovered, and she dresses with more care, she must be completely beautiful: this change, however, never happens, but it is always expected; and that is sufficient to make the imagination still add something more to the natural effect of her charms."— (Vol. i., p. 21.)

Nothing can be more execrable than the manner in which this book is translated. The bookseller has employed one of our countrymen for that purpose, who appears to have been very lately caught. The contrast between the passionate exclamations of Madame de Staël, and the barbarous vulgarities of poor Sawney, produces a mighty ludicrous effect. One of the heroes, a man of high fastidious temper, exclaims in a letter to Delphine, “I cannot endure this Paris; I have met with ever so many people, whom my soul abhors." And the accomplished and enraptured Leonce terminates one of his letters thus; "Adieu! Adieu, my dearest Delphine! I will give you a call to-morrow." We doubt if Grub street ever imported from Caledonia a more abominable translator.

We admit the character of Madame de Vernon to be drawn with considerable skill. There are occasional traits of eloquence and pathos in this novel, and very many of those observations upon manners and character, which are totally out of the reach of all who have not lived long in the world, and observed it well.

The immorality of any book (in our estimation) is to be determined by the general impression it leaves on those minds, whose principles, not yet ossified, are capable of affording a less powerful defence to its influence. The most dangerous effect that any fictitious character can produce, is when two or three of its popular vices are varnished over with everything that is captivating and gracious in the exterior, and ennobled by association with splendid virtues; this apology will be more sure of its effect, if the faults are not against nature, but against society. The aversion to murder and cruelty could not perhaps be so overcome; but a regard

CHARACTERS.

117 to the sanctity of marriage vows, to the sacred and sensitive delicacy of the female character, and to numberless restrictions important to the well-being of our species, may easily be relaxed by this subtle and voluptuous confusion of good and evil. It is in vain to say the fable evinces, in the last act, that vice is productive of misery. We may decorate a villain with graces and felicities for nine volumes and hang him in the last page. This is not teaching virtue, but gilding the gallows, and raising up splendid associations in favour of being hanged. In such a union of the amiable and the vicious (especially if the vices are such, to the commission of which there is no want of natural disposition), the vice will not degrade the man, but the man will ennoble the vice. We shall wish to be him we admire, in spite of his vices, and, if the novel be well written, even in consequence of his vice. There exists, through the whole of this novel, a show of exquisite sensibility to the evils which individuals suffer by the inflexible rules of virtue prescribed by society, and an eager disposition to apologize for particular transgressions. Such doctrine is not confined to Madame de Staël; an Arcadian cant is gaining fast upon Spartan gravity; and the happiness diffused, and the beautiful order established in society, by this unbending discipline, are wholly swallowed up in compassion for the unfortunate and interesting individual. Either the exceptions or the rule must be given up: every highwayman who thrusts his pistol into a chaise-window has met with unforeseen misfortunes; and every loose matron who flies into the arms of her Greville was compelled to marry an old man whom she detested, by an avaricious and unfeeling father. The passions want not accelerating, but retarding machinery. This fatal and foolish sophistry has power enough over every heart, not to need the aid of fine composition, and well-contrived incident-auxiliaries which Madame de Staël intended to bring forward in the cause, though she has fortunately not succeeded.

M. de Serbellone is received as a guest into the house of M. d'Ervins, whose wife he debauches as a recompense for his hospitality. Is it possible to be disgusted with ingratitude and injustice, when united to such an assemblage of talents and virtues as this man of paper possesses? Was there ever a more delightful, fascinating adultress than Madame d'Ervins is intended to be? or a povero cornuto less capable of exciting compassion than her hus