CHAPTER XVIII.

And thou, Amanda, come, pride of my song!Form'd by the Graces, loveliness itself!Come with those downcast eyes, sedate and sweet,Those looks demure, that deeply pierce the soul,Where, with the light of thoughtful reason mix'd,Shines lively fancy and the feeling heart:Oh, come! and while the rosy-footed MaySteals blushing on, together let us treadThe morning dews, and gather in their primeFresh-blooming flowers, to grace thy braided hair.

And if his attachment to her suggested that beautiful description of domestic happiness with which his Spring concludes,—

But happy they, the happiest of their kind,Whom gentler stars unite, &c.

who would not grieve at the destiny which denied to Thomson pleasures he could so eloquently describe, and so feelingly appreciate?

Truth, however, obliges me to add one little trait. A lady who did not know Thomson personally, but was enchanted with his "Seasons," said she could gather from his works three parts of his character,—that he was an amiable lover, anexcellent swimmer, and extremely abstemious. Savage, who knew the poet, could not help laughing at this picture of a man who scarcely knew what love was; who shrunk from cold water like a cat; and whose habits were those of a good-natured bon vivant, who indulged himself in every possible luxury, which could be attained without trouble! He also died unmarried.

Hammond, the favourite of our sentimental great-grandmothers, whose "Love Elegies" lay on the toilettes of the Harriet Byrons and Sophia Westerns of the last century, was an amiable youth, "very melancholy and gentlemanlike," who being appointed equerry to Prince Frederic, cast his eyes on Miss Dashwood, bed-chamber woman to the Princess, and she became his Delia. The lady was deaf to his pastoral strains; and though it has been said that she rejected him on account of the smallness of his fortune, I do not see the necessity of believing this assertion, or of sympathising in the dull invectives and monotonous lamentations of the slighted lover. Miss Dashwoodnever married, and was, I believe, one of the maids of honour to the late Queen.

Thus the six poets, who, in the history of our literature, fill up the period which intervened between the death of Pope and the first publications of Burns and Cowper—all died old bachelors!

If we take a rapid view of French literature, from the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, down to the Revolution, we are dazzled by the record of brilliant and celebrated women, who protected or cultivated letters, and obtained the homage of men of talent. There was Ninon; and there was Madame de Rambouillet; the onegalante, the otherprecieuse. One had her St. Evremond; the other her Voiture. Madame de Sablière protected La Fontaine; Madame de Montespan protected Molière; Madame de Maintenon protected Racine. It was all patronageand protection on one side, and dependance and servility on the other. Then we have theintriganteMadame de Tencin;[137]the good-natured, but ratherbornéeMadame de Géoffrin; the Duchesse de Maine, who held a little court ofbel espritsand small poets at Sçeaux, and is best known as the patroness of Mademoiselle de Launay. Madame d'Epinay, theamieof Grimm, and the patroness of Rousseau; the clever, selfish, witty, everennuyée, neverennuyeuseMadame du Deffand; the ardent, talented Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse, who would certainly have been a poetess, if she had not been a philosopheress and a Frenchwoman: Madame Neckar, the patroness of Marmontel and Thomas:—e tutte quante. If we look over the light French literature of those times, we find an inconceivable heap ofvers galans, andjolis couplets, licentious songs, pretty, well-turnedcompliments, and most graceful badinage; but we can discover the names of only two distinguished women, who have the slightest pretensions to a poetical celebrity, derived from the genius, the attachment, and the fame of their lovers. These were Madame du Châtelet, Voltaire's "Immortelle Emilie:" and Madame d'Houdetot, the Doris of Saint-Lambert.

Gabrielle-Emilie le Tonnelier de Bréteuil, was the daughter of the Baron de Bréteuil, and born in 1706. At an early age she was taken from her convent, and married to the Marquis du Châtelet; and her life seems thenceforward to have been divided between two passions, or rather two pursuits rarely combined,—love, and geometry. Her tutor in both is said to have been the famous mathematician Clairaut; and between them they rendered geometry so much the fashion at one time, that all the women, who were distinguished either for rank or beauty, thought it indispensable to have a geometrician in their train. The "Poëtes de Société" hid for a while their diminishedheads, or were obliged to study geometrypour se mettre à la mode.[138]Her friendship with Voltaire began to take a serious aspect, when she was about eight-and-twenty, and he was about forty; he is said to have succeeded thatroué par excellence, the Duc de Richelieu, in her favour.

This woman might have dealt in mathematics,—might have inked her fingers with writing treatises on the Newtonian philosophy; she might have sat up till five in the morning, solving problems and calculating eclipses;—and yet have possessed amiable, elevated, generous, and attractive qualities, which would have thrown a poetical interest round her character; moreover, considering the horribly corrupt state of French society at that time, she might have been pardoned "une vertu de moins," if her power over a great genius had been exercised to some good purpose;—to restrain his licentiousness, to soften his pungent and merciless satire, and prevent the frequent prostitutionof his admirable and versatile talents. But a female sceptic, profligate from temperament and principle; a termagant, "qui voulait furieusement tout ce qu'elle voulait; "a woman with all thesuffisanceof a pedant, and all theexigeance, caprices, and frivolity of a fine lady,—grands dieux!what a heroine for poetry!

To a taste for Newton and the stars, and geometry and algebra, Madame du Châtelet added some other tastes, not quite so sublime;—a great taste for bijoux—and pretty gimcracks—and old china—and watches—and rings—and diamonds—and snuff-boxes—and—puppet-shows![139]and, now and then,une petite affaire du cœur, by way of variety.

Tout lui plait, tout convient à son vaste genie:Les livres, les bijoux, les compas, les pompons,Les vers, les diamants, le biribi,[140]l'optique,L'algêbre, les soupers, le latin, les jupons,L'opéra, les procès, le bal, et la physique!

This "Minerve de la France, la respectable Emilie," did not resemble Minerva inallher attributes; nor was she satisfied with asuccessionof lovers. The whole history of herliaisonwith Voltaire, is enough to puten dérouteall poetry, and all sentiment. With her imperious temper and bitter tongue, and his extreme irritability, no wonder they should havedes scênes terribles.[141]Marmontel says they were oftenà couteaux tirés; and this, not metaphorically but literally. On one occasion, Voltaire happened to criticise some couplets she had written for Madame de Luxembourg. "L'Amante de Newton"[142]could calculate eclipses, but she could not make verses; and, probably, for that reason, she was most particularlyjealous of all censure, while she criticised Voltaire without manners or mercy; and he endured it, sometimes with marvellous patience.

A dispute was now the consequence; both became furious; and at length Voltaire snatched up a knife, and brandishing it exclaimed, "ne me regarde donc pas avec tes yeux hagards et louches!" After such a scene as this one would imagine that Love must have spread his light wings and fled for ever. Could Emilie ever have forgiven those words, or Voltaire have forgotten the look that provoked them?

But themobilitéof his mind was one of the most extraordinary parts of his character, and he was not more irascible than he was easily appeased. Madame du Châtelet maintained her power over him for twenty years; during five of which they resided in her château at Cirey, under the countenance of her husband; he was a good sort of man, but seems to have been considered by these two geniuses and their guests as a complete nonentity. He was "Le bon-homme, le vilain petit Trichateau" whom it was a task to speak to, and apenance to amuse. Every day, after coffee, Monsieur rose from the table with all the docility imaginable, leaving Voltaire and Madame to recite verses, translate Newton, philosophise, dispute, and do the honours of Cirey to the brilliant society who had assembled under his roof.

While the boudoir, the laboratory, and the sleeping-room of the lady, and the study and gallery appropriated to Voltaire, were furnished with Oriental luxury and splendour, and shone with gilding, drapery, pictures, and baubles, the lord of the mansion and the guests were destined to starve in half-furnished apartments, from which the wind and the rain were scarcely excluded.[143]

In 1748, Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet paid a visit to the Court of Stanislas, the ex-king of Poland, at Luneville, and took M. du Châtelet in their train. There Madame du Châtelet wasseized with a passion for Saint-Lambert, the author of the "Saisons," who was at least ten or twelve years younger than herself, and then ajeune militaire, only admired for his fine figure and prettyvers de société. Voltaire, it is said, was extremely jealous; but his jealousy did not prevent him from addressing some very elegant verses to his handsome rival, in which he compliments him gaily on the good graces of the lady.

Saint-Lambert, ce n'est que pour toiQue ces belles fleurs sont écloses,C'est ta main qui cueille les roses,Et les épines sont pour moi![144]

Some months afterwards, Madame du Châtelet died in child-birth, in her forty-fourth year.

Voltaire was so overwhelmed by this loss, that he set off for Paris immediatelypour se dissiper. Marmontel has given us a most ludicrous account of a visit of condolence he paid him on this occasion. He found Voltaire absolutely drowned in tears, and at every fresh burst of sorrow, he calledon Marmontel to sympathise with him. "Helas! j'ai perdu mon illustre amie! Ah! ah! je suis au desespoir!"—Then exclaiming against Saint-Lambert, whom he accused as the cause of the catastrophe—"Ah! mon ami! il me l'a tuée, le brutal!" while Marmontel, who had often heard him abuse his "sublimeEmilie" in no measured terms, as "une furie, attachée à ses pas," hid his face with his handkerchief in pretended sympathy, but in reality to conceal his irrepressible smiles. In the midst of this scene of despair, some ridiculous idea or story striking Voltaire's vivid fancy, threw him into fits of laughter, and some time elapsed before he recollected that he was inconsolable.

The death of Madame du Châtelet, the circumstances which attended it, and the celebrity of herself and her lover, combined to cause a greatsensation. No elegies indeed appeared on the occasion,—"no tears eternal that embalm the dead;" but a shower of epigrams andbon mots—some exquisitely witty and malicious. The story of her ring, in which Voltaire and her husbandeach expected to find his own portrait, and which on being opened, was found, to the utter discomfiture of both, to contain that of Saint-Lambert, is well known.

If we may judge from her picture, Madame du Châtelet must have been extremely pretty. Her eyes were fine and piercing; her features delicate, with a good deal offinesseand intelligence in their expression. But her countenance, like her character, was devoid of interest. She had great power of mental abstraction; and on one occasion she went through a most complicated calculation of figures in her head, while she played and won a game at piquet. Shecouldbe graceful and fascinating, but her manners were, in general, extremely disagreeable; and her parade of learning, her affectation, her egotism, her utter disregard of the comforts, feelings, and opinions of others, are well pourtrayed in two or three brilliant strokes of sarcasm from the pen of Madame de Stael.[145]Sheeven turns her philosophy into ridicule. "Elle fait actuellement la revue de ses Principes;[146]c'est un exercise qu'elle réitère chaque année, sans quoi ils pourroient s'échapper; et peut-être s'en aller si loin qu'elle n'en retrouverait pas un seul. Je crois bien que sa tête est pour eux une maison de force, et non pas le lieu de leur naissance."[147]

That Madame du Châtelet was a woman of extraordinary talent, and that her progress in abstract sciences was uncommon, and evenuniqueat that time, at least among her own sex, is beyond a doubt; but her learned treatises on Newton, and the nature of fire, are now utterly forgotten. We have since had a Mrs. Marcet; and we have read of Gaetana Agnesi, who was professor of mathematics in the University of Padua; two women who, uniting to the rarest philosophical acquirements, gentleness and virtue, have needed no poet to immortalize them.

Of the numerous poems which Voltaire addressed to Madame du Châtelet, the Epistle beginning

Tu m'appelles à toi, vaste et puissant génie,Minerve de la France, immortelle Emilie,

is achef d'œuvre, and contains some of the finest lines he ever wrote. The Epistle to her on calumny, written to console her for the abuse and ridicule which her abstractions and indiscretions had provoked, begins with these beautiful lines—

Ecoutez-moi, respectable Emilie:Vous êtes belle; ainsi donc la moitiéDu genre humain sera votre ennemie:Vous possédez un sublime génie;On vous craindra; votre tendre amitiéEst confiante; et vous serez trahie:Votre vertu dans sa démarche unie,Simple et sans fard, n'a point sacrifiéA nos dévots; craignez la calomnie.

With that famous ring, from which he had afterwards the mortification to discover that his own portrait had been banished to make room for that of Saint-Lambert, he sent her this elegantquatrain.

Barier grava ces traits destinés pour vos yeux;Avec quelque plaisir daignez les reconnoitre:Les vòtres dans mon cœur furent gravés bien mieux,Mais ce fut par un plus grand maitre.

The heroine of the famous Epistle, known as "Lestuet lesvous," (Madame de Gouverné,) was one of Voltaire's earliest loves; and he was passionately attached to her. They were separated in the world:—she went through the usualroutineof a French woman's existence,—I mean, of a French womansous l'ancien régime.

Quelques plaisirs dans la jeunesse,Des soins dans la maternité,Tous les malheurs dans la vieillesse,Puis la peur de l'éternité.

She was first dissipated; then anesprit fort; thentrès dévote. In obedience to her confessor, she discarded, one after the other, her rouge, her ribbons, and the presents and billets-doux of her lovers; but no remonstrances could induce her to give up Voltaire's picture. When he returned from exile in 1778, he went to pay a visit to his old love; they had not met for fifty years, and they now gazed on each other in silent dismay.Helooked, I suppose, like the dried mummy of an ape:she, like a witheredsorcière. The same evening she sent him back his portrait, which she had hitherto refused to part with. Nothing remained to shed illusion over the past; she had beheld, even before the last terrible proof—

What dust we doat on, when 'tis man we love.

And Voltaire, on his side, was not less dismayed by his visit. On returning from her, he exclaimed, with a shrug of mingled disgust and horror, "Ah,mes amis! je viens de passer à l'autre bord du Cocyte!" It was not thus that Cowper felt for his Mary, when "her auburn locks were changed to grey:" but it is almost an insult to the memory of true tenderness to mention them both in the same page.

To enumerate other women who have been celebrated by Voltaire, would be to give a list of all the beautiful and distinguished women of France for half a century; from the Duchess de Richelieu and Madame de Luxembourg, down to Camargo the dancer, and Clairon and le Couvreur the actresses: but I can find no name of anypoeticalfame or interest among them: nor can I conceive any thing more revolting than the history of French society and manners during the Regency and the whole of the reign of Louis the Fifteenth.

FOOTNOTES:[137]Madame de Tencin used to call the men of letters she assembled at her house "mes bêtes," and her society went by the name of Madame de Tencin's ménagerie. Her advice to Marmontel, when a young man, was excellent. See his Memoirs, vol. i.[138]Correspondence de Grimm, vol. ii. 421.[139]Je ris plus que personne aux marionettes; et j'avoue qu'une boite, une porcelaine, un meuble nouveau, sont pour moi une vrai jouissance.—Œuvres de Madame du Châtelet—Traité de Bonheur.[140]The then fashionable game at cards.[141]Voltaire once said of her, "C'est une femme terrible, qui n'a point de flexibilité dans le cœur, quoiqu'elle l'ait bon." This hardness of temper, thisvolonté tyrannique, this cold determination never to yield a point, were worse than all her violence.[142]The title which Voltaire gave her.[143]"Vie privée de Voltaire et de Madame du Châtelet," in a series of letters, written by Madame de Graffigny during her stay at Cirey. The details in these letters are exceedingly amusing, but the style so diffuse, that it is scarcely possible to make extracts.[144]Epitre à Saint-Lambert.[145]Madlle. de Launay: it has become necessary to distinguish between two celebrated women bearing the same name, at least in sound.[146]"Les principes de la philosophie de Newton."[147]V. Correspondence de Madame de Deffand. In another letter from Sçeaux, Madame de Stael adds the following clever, satirical,—but most characteristic picture:—"En tout cas on vous garde un bon appartement: c'est celui dont Madame du Châtelet, après une revue exacte de toute la maison, s'était emparée. Il y aura un peu moins de meubles qu'elle n'y en avait mis; car elle avait dévasté tous ceux par où elle avait passé pour garnir celui-là. On y a trouvé six ou sept tables; il lui en faut de toutes les grandeurs; d'immenses pour étaler ses papiers, de solides pour soutenir son necessaire, de plus légerès pour ses pompons, pour ses bijoux; et cette belle ordonnance ne l'a pas garantie d'une accident pareil à celui qui arrive à Philippe II. quand, après avoir passé la nuit à écrire, on répandit une bouteille d'encre sur ses dépèches. La dame ne s'est pas piquée d'imiter la moderation de ce prince; aussi n'avait-il écrit que sur des affaires d'état; et ce qu'on lui a barbouillé, c'etait de l'algèbre, bien plus difficile à remettre au net."

[137]Madame de Tencin used to call the men of letters she assembled at her house "mes bêtes," and her society went by the name of Madame de Tencin's ménagerie. Her advice to Marmontel, when a young man, was excellent. See his Memoirs, vol. i.

[138]Correspondence de Grimm, vol. ii. 421.

[139]Je ris plus que personne aux marionettes; et j'avoue qu'une boite, une porcelaine, un meuble nouveau, sont pour moi une vrai jouissance.—Œuvres de Madame du Châtelet—Traité de Bonheur.

[140]The then fashionable game at cards.

[141]Voltaire once said of her, "C'est une femme terrible, qui n'a point de flexibilité dans le cœur, quoiqu'elle l'ait bon." This hardness of temper, thisvolonté tyrannique, this cold determination never to yield a point, were worse than all her violence.

[142]The title which Voltaire gave her.

[143]"Vie privée de Voltaire et de Madame du Châtelet," in a series of letters, written by Madame de Graffigny during her stay at Cirey. The details in these letters are exceedingly amusing, but the style so diffuse, that it is scarcely possible to make extracts.

[144]Epitre à Saint-Lambert.

[145]Madlle. de Launay: it has become necessary to distinguish between two celebrated women bearing the same name, at least in sound.

[146]"Les principes de la philosophie de Newton."

[147]V. Correspondence de Madame de Deffand. In another letter from Sçeaux, Madame de Stael adds the following clever, satirical,—but most characteristic picture:—"En tout cas on vous garde un bon appartement: c'est celui dont Madame du Châtelet, après une revue exacte de toute la maison, s'était emparée. Il y aura un peu moins de meubles qu'elle n'y en avait mis; car elle avait dévasté tous ceux par où elle avait passé pour garnir celui-là. On y a trouvé six ou sept tables; il lui en faut de toutes les grandeurs; d'immenses pour étaler ses papiers, de solides pour soutenir son necessaire, de plus légerès pour ses pompons, pour ses bijoux; et cette belle ordonnance ne l'a pas garantie d'une accident pareil à celui qui arrive à Philippe II. quand, après avoir passé la nuit à écrire, on répandit une bouteille d'encre sur ses dépèches. La dame ne s'est pas piquée d'imiter la moderation de ce prince; aussi n'avait-il écrit que sur des affaires d'état; et ce qu'on lui a barbouillé, c'etait de l'algèbre, bien plus difficile à remettre au net."

[147]V. Correspondence de Madame de Deffand. In another letter from Sçeaux, Madame de Stael adds the following clever, satirical,—but most characteristic picture:—

"En tout cas on vous garde un bon appartement: c'est celui dont Madame du Châtelet, après une revue exacte de toute la maison, s'était emparée. Il y aura un peu moins de meubles qu'elle n'y en avait mis; car elle avait dévasté tous ceux par où elle avait passé pour garnir celui-là. On y a trouvé six ou sept tables; il lui en faut de toutes les grandeurs; d'immenses pour étaler ses papiers, de solides pour soutenir son necessaire, de plus légerès pour ses pompons, pour ses bijoux; et cette belle ordonnance ne l'a pas garantie d'une accident pareil à celui qui arrive à Philippe II. quand, après avoir passé la nuit à écrire, on répandit une bouteille d'encre sur ses dépèches. La dame ne s'est pas piquée d'imiter la moderation de ce prince; aussi n'avait-il écrit que sur des affaires d'état; et ce qu'on lui a barbouillé, c'etait de l'algèbre, bien plus difficile à remettre au net."

Saint-Lambert, who seemed destined to rival greater men than himself, after carrying off Madame du Châtelet from Voltaire, became the favoured lover of the Comtesse d'Houdetot, Rousseau's Sophie; she for whom the philosopher first felt love, "dans toute son energie, toutes ses fureurs,"—but in vain.

Saint-Lambert is allowed to be an elegant poet: hisSaisonswere once as popular in France, as Thomson's Seasons are here; but they have not retained their popularity. The French poem, though in many parts imitated from the English,is as unlike it as possible: correct, polished, elegant, full of beautiful lines,—of what the French callde beaux vers,—and yet excessively dull. It is equally impossible to find fault with it in parts, or endure it as a whole.Une petite pointe de vervewould have rendered it delightful; but the total want of enthusiasm in the writer freezes the reader. As Madame du Deffand said, in humorous mockery of his monotonous harmony, "Sans les oiseaux, les ruisseaux, les hameaux, les ormeaux, et leur rameaux, il aurait bien pen de choses a dire!"

Madame d'Houdetot was theDoristo whom the Seasons are dedicated; and the opening passage addressed to her, is extremely admired by French critics.

Et toi, qui m'as choisi pour embellir ma vie,Doux répos de mon cœur, aimable et tendre amie!Toi, qui sais de nos champs admirer les beautés:Dérobe toi, Doris! au luxe des cités,Aux arts dont tu jouis, au monde où tu sçais plaire;Le printemps te rappelle au vallon solitaire;Heureux si près de toi je chante à son retour,Ses dons et ses plaisirs, la campagne et l'amour!

Sophie de la Briche, afterwards Madamed'Houdetot, was the daughter of a richfermier general; and destined, of course, to a marriage de convenance, she was united very young to the Comte d'Houdetot, an officer of rank in the army; a man who was allowed by his friends to betrès peu amiable, and whom Madame d'Epinay, who hated him, calledvilain, andinsupportable. He was too good-natured to make his wife absolutely miserable, butun bonheur à faire mourir d'ennui, was not exactly adapted to the disposition of Sophie; and there was no principle within, no restraint without, no support, no counsel, no example, to guide her conduct or guard her against temptation.

The power by which Madame d'Houdetot captivated the gay, handsome, dissipated Saint-Lambert, and kindled into a blaze the passions or the imagination of Rousseau, was not that of beauty. Her face was plain and slightly marked with the small-pox; her eyes were not good; she was extremely short-sighted, which gave to her countenance and address an appearance of uncertainty and timidity; her figure wasmignonne,and in all her movements there was an indescribable mixture of grace and awkwardness. The charm by which this woman seized and kept the hearts, not of lovers only, but of friends, was a character the very reverse of that of Madame du Châtelet, who would have deemed it an insult to be compared to her either in mind or beauty:—the absence of allpretension, all coquetry; the total surrender of her own feelings, thoughts, interests, where another was concerned; the frankness which verged on giddiness and imprudence; the temper which nothing could ruffle; the warm kindness which nothing could chill; the bounding spirit of gaiety, which nothing could subdue,—these qualities rendered Madame d'Houdetot an attaching and interesting creature, to the latest moment of her long life. "Mon Dieu! que j'ai d'impatience de voir dix ans de plus sur la tête de cette femme!" exclaimed her sister-in-law, Madame d'Epinay, when she saw her at the age of twenty. But at the age of eighty, Madame d'Houdetot was just as much a child as ever,—"aussi vive, aussi enfant, aussi gaie, aussi distraite, aussi bonneet très bonne;"[148]in spite of wrinkles, sorrows, and frailties, she retained, in extreme old age, the gaiety, the tenderness, the confiding simplicity, though not the innocence of early youth.

Herliaisonwith Saint-Lambert continued fifty years, nor was she ever suspected of any other indiscretion. During this time he contrived to make her as wretched as a woman of her disposition could be made; and the elasticity of her spirits did not prevent her from being acutely sensible to pain, and alive to unkindness. Saint-Lambert, from being her lover, became her tyrant. He behaved with a peevish jealousy, a petulance, a bitterness, which sometimes drove her beyond the bounds of a woman's patience; and when ever this happened, the accommodating husband, M. d'Houdetot would interfere to reconcile the lovers, and plead for the recall of the offender.

When Saint-Lambert's health became utterly broken, she watched over him with a patient tenderness, unwearied by all hisexigeance, and unprovoked by his detestable temper; he had ahouse near her's in the valley of Montmorenci, and lived on perfectly good terms with her husband. I must add one trait, which, however absurd, and scarcely credible, it may sound in our sober, English ears, is yet true. M. and Madame d'Houdetot gave a fête at Eaubonne, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of their marriage. Sophie was then nearlyseventy, but played her part, as the heroine of the day, with all the grace and vivacity of seventeen. On this occasion, the lover and the husband chose, for the first time in their lives, to be jealous of each other, and exhibited, to the amusement and astonishment of the guests, ascene, which was for some time the talk of all Paris.

Saint-Lambert died in 1805. After his death, Madame d'Houdetot was seized with a sentimentaltendressefor M. Somariva,[149]and continued to send him bouquets and billets-doux to the end of her life. She died about 1815.

To her singular power of charming, Madame d'Houdetot added talents of no common order,which, though never cultivated with any perseverance, now and then displayed, or ratherdisclosedthemselves unexpectedly, adding surprise to pleasure. She was a musician, a poetess, a wit;—but every thing, "par la gràce de Dieu,"—and as if unconsciously and involuntarily. All Saint-Lambert's poetry together is not worth the little song she composed for him on his departure for the army:—

L'Amant que j'adore,Prêt à me quitter,D'un instant encoreVoudrait profiter:Felicité vaine!Qu'on ne peut saisir,Trop près de la peinePour étre un plaisir![150]

It is to Madame d'Houdetot that Lord Byron alludes in a striking passage of the third canto of Childe Harold, beginning

Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,[151]&c.

Andaproposto Rousseau, I shall merely observe, that there is, and can be but one opinion with regard to his conduct in the affair of Madame d'Houdetot: it was abominable. She thought, as every one who ever was connected with that man, found sooner or later, that he was all made up of genius and imagination, and as destitute of heart as of moral principle. I can never think of his character, but as of something at once admirable, portentous and shocking; the most great, most gifted, most wretched;—worst, meanest, maddest of mankind!

Madame du Châtelet and Madame d'Houdetot must for the present be deemed sufficient specimens of French poetical heroines;—it were easy to pursue the subject further, but it would lead to a field of discussion and illustration, which I would rather decline.[152]

Is it not singular that in a country which was the cradle, if not the birth-place of modern poetry and romance, the language, the literature, and the women, should be so essentially and incurablyprosaic? The muse of French poetry never swept a lyre; she grinds a barrel-organ in her serious moods, and she scrapes a fiddle in her lively ones; and as for the distinguished French women, whose memory and whose characters are blended with the literature, and connected with the great names of their country,—they are often admirable, and sometimes interesting; but with all their fascinations, their charms, theiresprit, theirgraces, theiramabilité, and theirsensibilité, it was not in the power of the gods or their lovers to make thempoetical.

FOOTNOTES:[148]Mémoires et Lettres de Madame d'Epinay, tom. 1. p. 95.[149]M. Somariva is well known to all who have visited Paris, for his fine collection of pictures, and particularly as the possessor of Canova's famous Magdalen.[150]See Lady Morgan's France, and the Biographie Universelle.[151]Stanza 77, and more particularly stanza 79.[152]In one of Madame de Genlis' prettiest Tales—"Les preventions d'une femme," there is the following observation, as full of truth as of feminine propriety. I trust that the principle it inculcates has been kept in view through the whole of this little work."Il y a plus de pudeur et de dignité dans la douce indulgence qui semble ignorer les anecdotes scandaleuses ou du moins, les revoquer en doute, que dans le dédain qui en retrace le souvenir, et qui s'érige publiquement en juge inflexible."

[148]Mémoires et Lettres de Madame d'Epinay, tom. 1. p. 95.

[149]M. Somariva is well known to all who have visited Paris, for his fine collection of pictures, and particularly as the possessor of Canova's famous Magdalen.

[150]See Lady Morgan's France, and the Biographie Universelle.

[151]Stanza 77, and more particularly stanza 79.

[152]In one of Madame de Genlis' prettiest Tales—"Les preventions d'une femme," there is the following observation, as full of truth as of feminine propriety. I trust that the principle it inculcates has been kept in view through the whole of this little work."Il y a plus de pudeur et de dignité dans la douce indulgence qui semble ignorer les anecdotes scandaleuses ou du moins, les revoquer en doute, que dans le dédain qui en retrace le souvenir, et qui s'érige publiquement en juge inflexible."

"Il y a plus de pudeur et de dignité dans la douce indulgence qui semble ignorer les anecdotes scandaleuses ou du moins, les revoquer en doute, que dans le dédain qui en retrace le souvenir, et qui s'érige publiquement en juge inflexible."

Heureuse la Beauté que le poëte adore!Heureux le nom qu'il a chanté!DE LAMARTINE.

Heureuse la Beauté que le poëte adore!Heureux le nom qu'il a chanté!

DE LAMARTINE.

It will be allowed, I think, that women have reason to be satisfied with the rank they hold in modern poetry; and that the homage which has been addressed to them, either directly and individually, or paid indirectly and generally, in the beautiful characters and portraits drawn of them, ought to satisfy equally female sentiment and female vanity. From the half ethereal forms which float amid moonbeams and gems, and odours and flowers, along the dazzling pages of Lalla Rookh,down to Phœbe Dawson, in the Parish Register:[153]from that loveliest gem of polished life, the young Aurora of Lord Byron, down to Wordsworth's poor Margaret weeping in her deserted cottage;[154]—all the various aspects between these wide extremes of character and situation, under which we have been exhibited, have been, with few exceptions, just and favourable to our sex.

In the literature of the classical ages, we were debased into mere servants of pleasure, alternately the objects of loose incense or coarse invective. In the poetry of the Gothic ages, we all rank as queens. In the succeeding period, when the platonic philosophy was oddly mixed up with the institutions of chivalry, we were exalted into divinities;—"angels called, and angel-like adored." Then followed the age of French gallantry, tinged with classical elegance, and tainted with classical licence, when we were caressed, complimented, wooed and satirised by coxcomb poets,

Who ever mix'd their song with light licentious toys.

There was much expenditure of wit and of talent, but in an ill cause;—for the feeling was,au fond, bad and false;—"et il n'est guere plaisant d'être empoisonné, même par l'esprit de rose."

In the present time a better spirit prevails. We are not indeed sublimated into goddesses; but neither is it the fashion to degrade us into the playthings of fopling poets. We seem to have found, at length, our proper level in poetry, as in society; and take the place assigned to us as women—

As creatures not too bright or good,For human nature's daily food;For transient sorrows, simple wiles,Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles![155]

We are represented as ruling by our feminine attractions, moral or exterior, the passions and imaginations of men; as claiming, by our weakness, our delicacy, our devotion,—their protection, their tenderness, and their gratitude: and, sincethe minds of women have been more generally and highly cultivated; since a Madame de Stael, a Joanna Baillie, a Maria Edgeworth, and a hundred other names, now shining aloft like stars, have shed a reflected glory on the whole sex they belong to, we possess through them, a claim to admiration and respect for our mental capabilities. We assume the right of passing judgment on the poetical homage addressed to us, and our smiles alone can consecrate what our smiles first inspired.[156]

If we look over the mass of poetry produced during the last twenty-five years, whether Italian, French, German, or English, we shall find that the predominant feeling is honourable to women, and if not gallantry, is something better.[157]It istoo true, that the incense has not been always perfectly pure. "Many light lays,—ah, woe is me there-fore!"[158]have sounded from one gifted lyre, which has since been strung to songs of patriotism and tenderness. Moore, whom I am proud, for a thousand reasons, to claim as my countryman, began his literary and amatory career, fresh from the study of the classics, and the poets of Charles the Second's time; and too often through the thin undress of superficial refinement, we trace the grossness of his models. It is said, I know not how truly, that he has since made theamende honorable. He has possibly discovered, that women of sense and sentiment, who have a true feeling of what is due to them as women, are not fitly addressed in the style of Anacreon and Catullus; have no sympathies with his equivocalRosas, Fanny, and Julias, and are not flattered by being associated with tavern orgies and bumpers of wine, and such "tipsey revelry." Into themes like these he has, it is true, infused a buoyant spirit of gaiety, a tone of sentiment, and touches of tender and moral feeling, which would reconcile us to them, if any thing could; as in the beautiful songs, "When time, who steals our years away,"—"O think not my spirits are always as light,"—"Farewell! but whenever you think on the hour,"—"The Legacy," and a hundred others. But how manymoreare there, in which the purity and earnestness of the feeling vie with the grace and delicacy of the expression! and in the difficult art (only to be appreciated by a singer) of marrying verse to sound, Moore was never excelled—never equalled—but by Burns. He seems to be gifted, as poet and musician, with a double instinct of harmony, peculiar to himself.

Barry Cornwall is another living poet who has drunk deep from the classics and from our older writers; but with a finer taste and a better feeling, he has borrowed only what was decorative,graceful and accessory: the pure stream of his sentiment flows unmingled and untainted,—

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