the whole is in as great a degree original as any performance of this nature can be. The public will also be grateful to her for her endeavours to attain accuracy in dates. Altogether, we find so much neatness, conciseness, and sound judgment displayed in these narratives, that we only wish that the design had been planned on a larger scale: for the accounts, though drawn up with great good taste, are too brief to be satisfactory. The sketches of character are merely outlines, though they are all in nature, and the likeness is striking; and the criticisms on works are too short, though pithy and correct.Yet the volume brings the reader acquainted with a profusion of the lighter publications in French literature.

It is, we think, with great propriety that the author in her introduction, treats of the advantages and benefits likely to result to society, and to the sex, from mental cultivation. To those who ridicule knowlege in women, and who regard their virtues as more secure while under the safeguard of ignorance and idleness, she answers in the words of La Fontaine :

"Laissons dire les sots; le savoir a son prix*."

She coincides with the antient writer, who remarked that virtue is not so much the gift of nature as the effect of study. Ignorance and idleness are the parents of one half of human crimes; and more knowlege renders persons capable of more pleasures. The graces reside rather in the mind than in the countenance; and women who distinguish themselves in literature and stience do not become men, as the vulgar pretend, but more amiable women; since the sex is not rendered unnatural by being rendered more perfect. Science, she continues, is the attainment least affected by the caprices of fortune; why then are women, she asks, to be debarred from acquiring such a possession? Do we not share the ills of the men? Why interdict us the good? If in our portion of the latter, nature has acted rather the part of a stepmother towards us, why deprive us of the consolations of study?-Study would serve as an aliment to the active imaginations of females; it would render them domestic, and would make society more delightful, because less constantly essential; it preserves from low occupations, and contributes to good manners; it guards against melancholy; and it gives us, instead of hours of ennui, with which life must otherwise abound, those that are most delicious. If our females of distinction would carefully reflect on the remarks which are here submitted to their consideration, and not disdain the rich resource to which the fair pleader

Let fools say what they will, knowlege has its value.

would

would draw their attention, they would find it more certain and substantial than those to which they are now wont to have recourse; the trivial amusements of gay life, or a dog, a cat, or a bird, would be less necessary to their happiness, and engross a less share of their partiality. This idea reminds us of a neat monumental inscription in the canine cemetry at Oat lands, in which the august mistress of that charming place commemorates her obligations to a favourite dog, for hours which passed pleasantly away in the company of the guileless, faithful, and affectionate creature; and which, says the illustrious personage, would otherwise have hung heavily on her hands. Literature, in this view of it alone, would be well worth the cultivation of females in the higher situations of life.

Let it not be supposed, (the fair writer remarks,) that a love of knowlege can ever occasion any persons to neglect their duties, since nothing more strongly disposes to the due performance of them. The Queen of England, wife of George II. who served as umpire between the greatest metaphysicians in Europe, Clarke and Leibnitz, and who was capable of judging between them, never on that account neglected the cares of a Queen, of a wife, and of a mother.'

Madame B. considers Moliere as having rendered great service to the sex by overwhelming pedantic and conceited women with ridicule; for affectation, she says, appears to as little advantage in society as it does in the fine arts. His comedies, les Femmes Savantes, and les Precieuses Ridicules, ought to encourage women to cultivate science and letters. This is a sea on which there is the less danger of suffering shipwreck, now that a skilful pilot has pointed out the principal rocks. Women may learn from Moliere that they are never to overstep nature, and that modesty is to learning what decorum is to the graces. Anacreon, (says Madame B.,) that amiable poet, that charming philosopher, that painter whose exquisite colours the graces seem to have prepared, in his ingenious allegory of love chained by the muses, points out to women one of the most powerful means of fixing the attachment of their husbands, and of rendering the marriage union delightful; in opposition to that maxim of La Rochefou cault," there are good marriages, but there are none delicious."

、

It is also truly observed that women ought to remember that education, in its primary stages, is entrusted to their care and direction.

Is it not their province to give to their children the earliest lessons of courage, and of elevation of soul? Are they not to inspire them with the first sentiments of virtue, and to guard them against

prejudices

prejudices fatal to humanity? Agricola owed to his mother the pos session of that stayed wisdom which is so rare, and of such difficult attainment. Louis IX., Francis I., and Henry IV., are instances which shew the importance of the education given to children by their mothers. Louis caused justice and humanity to reign; Francis was the patron of letters; while Henry was the father of his subjects, and France never had a greater or a better king.

The sort of education which is assigned to most women, espe cially in high life, would lead us to suppose that they never were to grow old; for nothing is taught them that can give them interest in advanced years. Every season of life has its inconveniences to such as have no resource in themselves. Letters are the best support of old age. They embellished the latter days of Madame Duboccage. When upwards of ninety years old she had a brilliant society; her conversation was agreeable, and full of grace; and a little time before she died, she wrote charming verses. The old age of a literary person is the evening of a fine day.'

Madame B. furnishes a sketch of the services rendered by eminent women to France, and of the attainments which at different periods have distinguished them. An article in a treaty between Hannibal and the Gauls shews their ascendancy: "If any Gaul has cause to complain of a Carthaginian, let the matter be brought before the Carthaginian senate established in Spain; if a Carthaginian finds himself injured by a Gaul, let the affair be determined in the Supreme Council of the Gallic women." Though the Druids are said to have encroached very much on the power of women, they retained to the last a share in the administration. Private differences were referred to their decision, and the art of divination was in their hands; they had also schools in which young women were prepared for the exercise of these functions. It was to a woman, Clotilda, the wife of Clovis I., that the Franks owed their christianity.-The author also adverts to the ten years' regency of the wise and virtuous Batilda, widow of Clovis II., at the end of which she retired to the abbey of Chelles, which had the honour of furnishing learned men to certain kings in Britain, who rendered such good service as to enable that country, shortly afterward, to present France with an Alcuin. In the reign of Charlemagne, Henault informs us, the taste for letters was so much in vogue, that one of the fair sex was found who distinguished herself in astronomy; and Giselle, the sister of that Emperor, protected men of letters.

The great consideration in which women were held in the days of chivalry is duly noticed. Constance of Arles, married to king Robert in 998, introduced to his court the most cele brated Troubadours of the time; and it was she who first made rhyme known there, the only circumstance which then distin

guished

guished poetry from prose. The Romance, an uncouth mixture of Latin, of Celtic, and of Gothic, had become the vulgar tongue, but no one wrote in it. The Troubadours adopted it, and their songs ensured a preference to this idiom. France owes to them the first improvements of a language, which has given to it a sort of supremacy among the European states. In the Parliaments, or Courts of love, as they were called, where the Troubadours contended for the prize of victory in song, the women presided, and adjudged the contested meed; and in those times, females, as possessors of lordships, exercised all the feodal prerogatives, and administered justice to their vassals. The Troubadours having become extinct, Clémence Isaure founded the floral games which kept poetry alive, and materially favored its progress. Mary of Brabant, the benefactress of the votaries of the Muse, who assisted in the arrangement of the romance Cléomades,-and Jane of Navarre, the protectress of the learned, and the foundress of the magnificent college which bears her name,—must not be overlooked. Joan of Arc, Mary of Anjou, the Queen of Charles VII., and Agnes Sorrel his mistress, next pass in review. The virtue of Ann of Brittany is then celebrated; she patronized letters; and Marot had the title of poet to the magnificent Queen. She had begun to draw women to the Court, but they did not appear there with éclat till the reign of Francis I. Clément Marot derived from his converse with them that simplicity of thought, that ease of expression, those lively turns, in a word that ele gant badinage, which constituted the charm of his poetry.

If reprobating the atrocious conduct, the fair biographer still does justice to the vast abilities of Catherine de Medicis; and she equally pays an elegant tribute to the misfortunes of Mary Queen of Scots. The Duchess de Retz furnished an inftance of surprising female erudition; and she made the fortune of her husband in the several reigns of Charles IX., Henry III., and Henry IV. She was the only person in the Court of Charles IX. who spoke all the living languages of Europe; and this prince consulted her on all state affairs, where the knowlege of languages was necessary. She answered in Latin to the ambassadors who came to announce to the king the election of the Duke of Anjou to the crown of Poland. Mother of ten children, she devoted part of the day to their education. Her son the Marquis de Belle-Isle, on the death of Henry III., joined the League, and resolved to get possession of his father's property: but the Duchess drew together an armed force, placed herself at its head, terrified and dispersed the troops of the League, saved her possessions, and maintained her vassals in allegiance to Henry IV. The influence of females at the epoch of

the

the Fronde was so great, that the war is known to have been their war.

Henrietta of England next figures in Madame BRIQUET'S page. This Princess, she says, educated in the Court of France, introduced there a politeness and a grace at that time unknown in Europe; and the Court, observes Racine, regarded her as the arbitress of manners. It is from this Princess that Louis XIV. learnt to temper his pleasures with dignity, and to cover his gallantries with the veil of decency. The name of Henrietta of England also swells the brilliant list of the female protectors of men of letters: she strove to make amends for the oversight of the monarch, who astonished the learned of the North by his benefactions, but who neglected La Fontaine. There was not a man of genius in this reign who had not is providence. Quinault found it in Mesdames de Thiange and de Montespan, Lulli in Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Racine and Boileau in Madame de Maintenon. The Hôtel de Rambouillet, that of the Duchess de Maine, and the house of Ninon de l'En. clos, may be regarded as the residence of the Muses and Graces. We cannot speak, observes Madame B., of the age of Louis XIV. without alluding to the performances of its learned women. We are charmed with the fertile genius of Mademoiselle de Scudéry, with the style and taste of Madame Lafayette, with the simple graces of Madame Sevigné, (the La Fontaine of prose,) with the pure morality of Madame Lambert, with the profound erudition of Madame Dacier, and with the interest which enlivens the memoirs of Mademoiselle de Montpensier and Madame de Motteville. The idylls of Madame Deshouliéres paint the manners of the golden age.

Under the dissolute reign of Louis XV. occur female names dear to letters; those of Madame Geoffrin, Madame du Deffand, and Mademoiselle Lespinasse. The learned works of Madame du Châtelet, and the romances of Madame Riccoboni, are known to all; and we read with pleasure the prose and poetical works of Madame Duboccage, who preserved, through a long and glorious career the manners of the age of Louis XIV. Her society consisted of Clairault, Fontenelle, Gentil-Bernard, Helvetius, Condillac, Bailli, Condorcet, the abbé Barthéicmi, and Pougens.— Among those who shine in the present day, are named les Dames Genlis, Stael, Flahaut, St. Leon, Cotin, Keralio-Robert, Beaubarnais, Pipelet, Viot, Laferandière, and Joliveau.

We shall now submit to our readers one or two of the articles contained in this volume; as specimens by which they may judge of the plan of it, and of the manner in which it has been executed,

Rambouillet,