CONTENTS OF No. LX. ART. I. Considérations sur les Principaux Evénémens de la la Baronne de Staël. Broglie et M. le Baron A. de Staël II. 1. Osservazioni Intorno alla Questione sopra la Origi- III. Mélanges d'Histoire et de Litterature IV. 1. Observations on the Geology of the United States 2. An Elementary Treatise on Mineralogy and Geo- 2. Naufrage de la Fregate la Meduse, faisant Partie de VI. An Account of Experiments for Determining the VII. Mémoires pour Servir à l'Histoire des Evénémens de la 317 351 374 388 407 425 ART. VIII. Manuscrit de l'Isle d'Elbe. Des Bourbons en 1815. Publié par le Comte p. 444 IX. 1. An Inquiry, whether Crime and Misery are Produced or Prevented, by our present System of Prison Discipline. Illustrated by Descriptions of the Borough Compter; Tothill Fields Prison; the Jail at St Albans; the Jail at Guildford; the Jail at Bristol; the Jails at Bury and Ilchester; the Maison de Force at Ghent; the Philadelphia Prison; the Penitentiary at Millbank; and the Proceedings of the Ladies' Committee at Newgate. By Thomas Fowell Buxton. 2. A Letter to the Common Council and Livery of X. The Speech of Henry Brougham Esq., M. P. in the 463 486 XI. Documents connected with the Question of Reform 503 XII. A Journey to Rome and Naples, performed in 1817; Quarterly List of New Publications 524 536 546 THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, SEPTEMBER, 1818. No. LX. ART. I. Considérations sur les Principaux Evénémens de la Ré volution Françoise. Ouvrage Posthume de Mad. la Baronne de Staël. Publié par M. LE DUC DE BROGLIE et M. LE BARON A. DE STAEL. En Trois Tomes. 8vo. pp. 1285. Londres, 1818. N O BOOK can possibly possess a higher interest than this which is now before us. It is the last, dying bequest of the most brilliant writer that has appeared in our days;-and it treats of a period of history which we already know to be the most important that has occurred for centuries; and which those who look back on it, after other centuries have elapsed, will probably consider as still more important. We cannot stop now to say all that we think of Madame de Staël-and yet we must say, that we think her the most powerful writer that her country has produced since the time of Voltaire and Rousseau-and the greatest writer, of a woman, that any time or any country has produced. Her taste, perhaps, is not quite pure; and her style is too irregular and ambitious. These faults may even go deeper. Her passion for effect, and the tone of exaggeration which it naturally produces, have probably interfered occasionally with the soundness of her judgment, and given a suspicious colouring to some of her representations of fact. At all events, they have rendered her impatient of the humbler task of completing her explanatory details, or stating in their order all the premises of her reasonings. She gives her history in abstracts, and her theories in aphorisms:-and the greater part of her works, instead of presenting that systematic unity from which the highest degrees of strength and beauty and clearness must ever be derived, may be fairly described as a VOL. XXX. No. 60. T collection of striking fragments-in which a great deal of repetition does by no means diminish the effect of a good deal of inconsistency. In these same works, however, whether we consider them as fragments or as systems, we do not hesitate to say that there are more original and profound observations-more new images greater sagacity combined with higher imagination-and more of the true philosophy of the passions, the politics, and the literature of her contemporaries-than in any other author we can now remember. She has great eloquence on all subjects; and a singular pathos in representing those bitterest agonies of the spirit in which wretchedness is aggravated by remorse, or by regrets that partake of its character. Though it is difficult to resist her when she is in earnest, we cannot say that we agree in all her opinions, or approve of all her sentiments. She overrates the importance of Literature, either in determining the character or affecting the happiness of mankind; and she theorizes too confidently on its past and its future history. On subjects like this, we have not yet facts enough for so much philosophy; and must be contented, we fear, for a long time to come, to call many things accidental, which it would be more satisfactory to refer to determinate causes. In her estimate of the happiness, and her notions of the wisdom of private life, we think her both unfortunate and erroneous. She makes passions and high sensibilities a great deal too indispensable; and varnishes over all her pictures too uniformly with the glare of an extravagant or affected enthusiasm. She represents men, in short, as a great deal more unhappy, more depraved and more energetic, than they are-and seems to respect them the more for it.-In her politics she is far more unexceptionable. She is everywhere the warm friend and animated advocate of liberty-and of liberal, practical, and philanthropic principles. On these subjects we cannot blame her enthusiasm, which has nothing in it vindictive or provoking; and are far more inclined to envy than to reprove that sanguine and buoyant temper of mind which, after all she has seen and suffered, still leads her to overrate, in our apprehension, both the merit of past attempts at political amelioration, and the chances of their success hereafter. It is in that futurity, we fear, and in the hopes that make it present, that the lovers of mankind must yet, for a while, console themselves for the disappointments which still seem to beset them. If Mad. de Staël, however, predicts with too much confidence, it must be admitted that her labours have a powerful tendency to realize her predictions. Her writings are all full of the most animating views of the improvement of our social condition, and the means by which it may be effected-the most striking refutations of prevailing errors on these great subjects-and the most persuasive expostulations with those who may think their interest or their honour concerned in maintaining them. Even they who are the least inclined to agree with her, must admit, that there is much to be learned from her writings; and we can give them no higher praise than to say, that their tendency is not only to promote the interests of philanthropy and independence, but to soften, rather than exasperate, the prejudices to which they are opposed. Of the work before us, we do not know very well what to say. It contains a multitude of admirable remarks-and a still greater number of curious details; for Mad. de S. was not only a contemporary, but an eyewitness of much that she describes, and had the very best access to learn what did not fall under her immediate observation. Few persons certainly could be better qualified to appreciate the relative importance of the subjects that fell under her review; and no one, we really think, so little likely to colour and distort them, from any personal or party feelings. With all those rare qualifications, however, and inestimable advantages for performing the task of an historian, we cannot say that she has made a good history. It is too much broken into fragments. The narrative is too much interrupted by reflections: and the reflections too much subdivided, to suit the subdivisions of the narrative. There are too many events omitted, or but cursorily noticed, to give the work the interest of a full and flowing history; and a great deal too many detailed and analyzed, to let it pass for an essay on the philosophy or greater results of these memorable transactions. We are the most struck with this last fault-which perhaps is inseparable from the condition of a contemporary writer;-for, though the observation may sound at first like a paradox, we are rather inclined to think, that the best historical compositions -not only the most pleasing to read, but the most just and instructive in themselves-must be written at a very considerable distance from the times to which they relate. When we read an eloquent and judicious account of great events transacted in other ages, our first sentiment is that of regret at not being able to learn more of them. We wish anxiously for a fuller detail of particulars-we envy those who had the good fortune to live in the time of such interesting occurrences, and blame them for having left us so brief and imperfect a memorial of them. But the truth is, if we may judge from our own experience, that the greater part of those who were present to those mighty operations, were but very imperfectly aware of their import |