at this time Schlegel would rather found his fame on being one of the greatest oriental critics of the age, than on being the interpreter of the beauties of Calderon and Shakspeare.

ALDA.

I believe so; but for my own part, I would rather hear him talk of Romeo and Juliet, and of Madame de Staël, than of the Ramayana, the Bhagvat-Gita, or even the "eastern Con-fut-zee." This, of course, is only a proof of my own ignorance. Conversation may be compared to a lyre with seven chords-philosophy, art, poetry, politics, love, scandal, and the weather. There are some professors, who, like Paganini, "can discourse most eloquent music" upon one string only; and some who can grasp the whole instrument, and with a master's hand sound it from the top to the bottom of its compass. Now, Schlegel is one of the latter he can thunder in the bass or caper in the treble; he can be a whole concert in himself. No man can trifle like him, nor, like him, blend in a few hours' converse, the critic, philologist, poet, philosopher, and man of the world—no man narrates more gracefully, nor more happily illustrates a casual thought. He told me many interesting things. "Do you know," said he one morning, as I was looking at a beautiful edition of Corinne,

:

bound in red morocco, the gift of Madame de Staël; "do you know that I figure in that book?" I asked eagerly in what character? He bid me guess. I guessed playfully, the Comte d'Erfeuil. "No! no!" said he, laughing, I am immortalized in the Prince Castel-Forte, the faithful, humble, unaspiring, friend of Corinne."

To any man but

were worth a life.

MEDON.

Schlegel, such an immortality Nay, there is no man, though his fame extended to the ends of the earth, whom the pen of Madame de Staël could not honour.

ALDA.

He seemed to think so, and I liked him for the self-complacency with which he twined her little myrtle leaf with his own palmy honours. Nor did he once refer to what I believe every body knows, her obligations to him in her De l'Allemagne.

MEDON.

Apropos-do tell me what is the general opinion of that book among the Germans themselves.

ALDA.

I think they do not judge it fairly. Some

VOL. I.

D

speak of it as eloquent, but superficial:* others denounce it altogether as a work full of mistakes and flippant, presumptuous criticism: others again affect to speak of it, and even of Madame de Staël herself, as things of another era, quite gone by and forgotten; this appeared to me too ridiculous. They forget, or do not know, what we know, that her De l'Allemagne was the first book which awakened in France and England a lively and general interest in German art and literature. It is now five-and-twenty years since it was published. The march of opinion, and criticism, and knowledge of every kind, has been so rapid, that much has become old which then was new; but this does not detract from its merit. Once or twice I tried to convince my German friends that they were exceedingly ungrateful in abusing Madame de Staël, but it was all in vain; so I sat swelling with indignation to hear my idol traduced, and calledO profanation!-"cette Staël."

MEDON.

But do you think the Germans could at all appreciate or understand such a phenomenon as Madame de Staël must have appeared in those

Amongst others, Jean Paul, in the "Heidelberger Jahrbücher der Literatur," 1815.

days? She wisked through their skies like a meteor, before they could bring the telescope of their wits to a right focus for observation. How she must have made them open their eyes!-and you see in the correspondence between Goëthe and Schiller what they thought of her.

ALDA.

Yes, I know that with her lively egotism and Parisian volubility, she stunned Schiller and teased Goëthe; but while our estimate of manner is relative, our estimate of character should be positive. Madame de Staël was in manner the French woman, accustomed to be the cynosure of a salon, but she was not ridiculous or egoïste in character. She was, to use Schlegel's expression, "femme grande et magnanime jusque dans les replis de son âme." The best proof is the very spirit in which she viewed Germany, in spite of all her natural and national prejudices. To apply your own expression, she went forth, in the spirit of peace, and brought back, not only an olive leaf, but a whole tree, and it has flourished. She had a universal mind. I believe she never thought, and still less made, any one ridiculous in her life.*

* Since the above passage was written, Mrs. Austin has favoured me with the following note: "Goëthe admired, but did not like, still

At Bonn much of my time was spent in intimate and almost hourly intercourse with two friends, one of whom I have already mentioned to youa rare creature !—the other, who was herself the daughter of a distinguished authoress,* was one of the most generally accomplished women I ever met with. Opposed to each other in the constitution of their minds-in all their views of literature and art, and all their experience of life-in their tastes, and habits, and feelings-yet mutually ap

less esteem, Madame de Staël. He begins a sentence about her thus As she had no idea what duty meant,' &c.

"However, after relating a scene which took place at Weimar, he adds, 'Whatever we may say or think of her, her visit was certainly followed by very important results. Her work upon Germany, which owed its rise to social conversations, is to be regarded as a mighty engine which at once made a wide breach in that Chinese wall of antiquated prejudices, which divided us from France; so that the people across the Rhine, and afterwards those across the channel, at length came to a nearer knowledge of us; whence we may look to obtain a living influence over the distant west. Let us, therefore, bless that conflict of national peculiarities which annoyed us at the time, and seemed by no means profitable.'"-Tag-und Jahres Hefte, vol. 31, last edit.

To that WOMAN who had sufficient strength of mind to break through a "Chinese wall of antiquated prejudices," surely something may be forgiven.

* Johanna Schopenhauer, well known in Germany for her romances and her works on art. Her little book, "Johan van Eyk und seine Nachfolger," has become the manual of those who study the old German schools of painting.