some other power, some other charm than of stories, entitled Les Enfans, which apits own. It is not so with women; truth peared about the same time, is composed must take a form which will touch them, in the same spirit. This kind of work is which will reach their understanding through more difficult than it is brilliant: it must their heart, borrow a voice which is dear to be simple without puerility, refined without them, or present itself beneath a name they affectation; it must be an interesting and yet love. With whatever spring, with what- a simple narrative; an elevated and yet faever energy the mind of Madame Guizot miliar moral. Madame Guizot knew how was endowed, I doubt that, had she lived to unite all these, and her tales have besolitary, it would ever have reached the come the model of the style. height that it attained; there would have The Restoration opened the career of been always a sort of disturbance in her public affairs to her husband. Madame nature as there was in her lot, and some Guizot might now hope for a more quiet inequality between her reason and her opi-life, such as she had always wished for. nions. The firm and calm judgment of her Activity was necessary to her, but labor husband furnished her with the support she was painful; she longed for relaxation as required, and brought harmony into her for a thing unknown; never had she tasted mind, by the united influence of happiness it, never had she been able to breathe and truth. She had never any other mas- freely, or be mistress of her mind and of ter than him, and no example has better her time. proved that a woman is never by herself all that she can be; it is necessary to her perfection that she should be loved, and that she should be happy.

To reflect in order to improve her own mind, to seek the truth for herself, to enjoy family affection without thinking of the world or its fame, such was the fate that smiled upon her, and which perhaps did not satisfy her, for, if she had sometimes found her life too laborious, she had never found it too much occupied.

We have seen that Madame Guizot was attached to the philosophy of the last century, less from choice than from opposition to reviving prejudices. She had of herself, and by the instinctive uprightness, But the aspect of affairs seen close at purity, and disinterestedness which govern- hand, too much occupies even those who ed her, been able to reform her moral opi- play no part in them, to leave them any nions; but in religion, in politics, even on feeling of idleness. Placed in a perfectly literary questions, she still wavered, seek-new position, Madame Guizot did not ing for convictions, and feeling a want of truth and liberty, that she did not know how to satisfy between scepticism and prejudice. What her mind in fact wanted was not ideas but principles. Her new position was a school where she learned to remodel all her opinions. She penetrated into that order of ideas towards which all - minds now tend, where all the real wants of a rational intelligence are appeased, in which an end is put to all question of the alliance of liberty and rule, of examination and faith, of reason and of truth. She rose by degrees to that tutelary faith which enlightens and strengthens, and makes the mind taste the noble pleasure of feeling itself altogether settled, yet at liberty, proud of its obedience, and yet free in its fet

ters.

The first advancement of Madame Guizot's mind in this new course is observable in the Annals of Education, a periodical compilation which her husband had undertaken, and which she has enriched by a number of articles which contain the germ of her greatest work. Her first collection

It

escape so powerful an influence. Released
from a thousand vexations, from a thousand
real cares which harassed her mind, and
absorbed her time, she was able to observe
and to think more freely; and greater ob-
jects offered themselves to her notice.
too often happens that public life lessens
the soaring of the mind, impairs the purity
of opinion; but we may doubt, neverthe-
less, whether he who has always lived re-
mote from it could well understand, even
in an abstract and general sense, the true
nature of man and of society, and penetrate
the whole mystery of their destiny on earth.

True policy modifies the freedom of speculation in the concern of truth, without shaking the solidity of its principles for an exalted mind. Well advised, it at once attests and limits the empire of reason over the things of this world; it teaches on what conditions that slow and sure victory of good over evil is to be fulfilled, which the moderns call perfectibility.

During about six years that this first essay in the history of affairs lasted, politics were to Madame Guizot the object of

an engrossment justified by her devotedness blow which struck at the cause to which to the interests of her husband, and to they had devoted all the energies of their those of every just cause. Free for the first minds. It made them again enter into time to work at her pleasure, and to choose that laborious state, from which Madame her own subject, she wrote an essay upon Guizot had appeared so happy to be re"The Ideas of Right and Duty considered leased; but she made this sacrifice with as the Basis of Society," which will un- such ease and simplicity, that her most indoubtedly be found to throw great light timate friends were unable to perceive that upon a difficult question, which passion and it cost her any effort. prejudice have designedly obscured.

Literary labor now again became to her an honorable necessity, and what had formerly enabled her to assist her mother, now afforded her the means of educating her son. In 1821 she published The Student, a novel on education, in every page of which, proof is given of the elevation of her mind, and the strictness of her judgment, amidst the fictions of a lively, natural, and diversified tale. This style presents many difficulties. It is now pretty well agreed that the beauty of a work of imagination is independent of its moral design; and literary criticism insists not upon such in its composition: but, when a moral design is the very motive of the book, the mind is left free, and the imagination has less scope. Nothing then is more difficult than

It is much in the same style as an essay upon Anarchy and Power, which, although written at a much later date, connects itself naturally with the former, which it completes and elucidates. One cannot fail of being struck with these two compositions, and with the vigor of mind of which they give proof. The first, full of original and fertile views, is perhaps sometimes a little more ingenious than it need be; but the second is distinguished by a perspicuity, a justness of expression and of thought, which enforces conviction. Both belong in the main point to ideas sufficiently modern, at least in their application to politics. They show that Madame Guizot experienced the necessity, hitherto more felt than satisfied, of supporting them upon the same princi- the composition of a story which unites inples as morals. But she did not always guard herself from a kind of puritanism, otherwise sufficiently justified by the looseness of principle which the civilians, monarchical or democratical, have by turns brought into these subjects. What she especially prohibits herself is complacency for her own opinions; we feel that she is distrustful of what flatters her, and that she chooses not her opinions for a purpose, but for themselves. Besides, good is never in opposition to good, and liberty has nothing to lose by truth.

Politics form one of the best schools for the mind. They force it to search for the reason of everything, and at the same time do not permit it to search except in facts. It is not necessarily the most difficult study, but it is that which, well conducted, gives the greatest firmness and prudence to the mind; and even he who only occupies himself seriously in politics, when he turns his attention to other subjects, cannot fail of showing both originality and superiority. Madame Guizot is herself an instance of the truth of this.

About the middle of 1820, her husband retired from affairs in which his opinions no longer found place. This change of position affected them but little: it was lost in the more important consideration of the

terest, variety, and truth, with the purity and clearness of the moral idea, which should be always present and always apparent; nothing must be separated from it, everything must lead back to it, without, at the same time, the narrative ceasing to delight our imagination, and to excite our curiosity and our sympathy.

Madame Guizot, who has constantly succeeded in resolving this difficulty in the composition of her stories, is far from having failed in The Student. It is however the moral sentiment, rather than the romantic part, which appears to us the great merit of this excellent book. Two general ideas have inspired it, and we may observe that the recital is double. The history of Ralph is intended to establish the inviolable duties which result from our natural positions, and the legitimacy of the dependence in which children are placed with respect to their parents, or to those who represent them. The history of Victor is the development of an idea which will be found set forth in the Essays upon Education. It tends to show how an ingenuous mind can redeem itself from a first fault, and, by well sustained efforts, arrive at discovering in the sense of its fall, a principle of regeneration; a true and great lesson, and which accords with the opinion

which Madame Guizot made the rule of her own conduct, and the foundation of her works on education; that there is no moral evil past recovery, and that human nature, even under the weight of a serious error, ought to recover itself, and is always enabled to do so by divine assistance.

An episode of this same novel, the history of Marie, seems to take up the same principle, as does also Nadir, a delightful story, which forms a part of the collection which she published two years afterwards, and in which, perhaps, better than in any other work, she has lent to her lessons of morality the aid and the attraction of a simple and agreeable fiction.

The

ples were those of a philosopher.
moral of the book is indeed pure, elevated,
and strict; it is supported neither by the
interest it excites, nor by dogmatism; it
relies only on itself, and claims not to hold
its power, but by its justice; this is to say,
it is philosophical. Let us repeat this word
in order that it may be understood. Morality
is philosophical when it is rational, when it
does not lay claim to any authority foreign
to its nature: this supposes it to be neither
a convention nor an emotion, and that it is
another thing than religion.

But in order to be philosophical it does not follow that it may not be religious. Even as it touches the heart that it binds itself to order without raising either feeling or interest, it can form an alliance with religion without being dependent on it; to say the truth, it is rather distinguished than separated from it, and both can by common consent reign in the mind, and govern the conduct. Of this, Madame Guizot's book affords more than one proof; but she is herself a still more remarkable example of it.

These various publications, however, were only, as it were, fragments. The same spirit pervades them all, and in each of them the ideas of the author seemed to be bound up, and people looked forward in expectation of a work from Madame Guizot, which should combine and corroborate them as a whole. Such a book soon appeared, which gave the theory of education that for a long time each of her writings seemed to promise, and placed her in the first rank of moralists. The Family Letters on Domestic Education are the best monument of Madame Guizot's mind. In this work, under an easy form, which in appearance has nothing systematical, which freely admits of examples, details, and digressions, she treats the greatest questions of moral philosophy, and shows by applications how general truths ought to regulate real life, and penetrate into the young reason of children. The excellence of the book consists in the union of great strictness of principle with perfect liberty of mind; it is by this that it presents a faithful image of her who composed it. Nothing is there conceded to expediency; nothing to arbitrary conventions; nor is there anything in it that has the stamp of that sentimental indulgence, which in our days too often passes from novels into morals. It is a book consisting entirely of truth. But, if the principles are those of a philosopher, who but a woman would have been able to discover those particular views, so fine and so Such was the piety of Madame Guizot, varied; those nice observations, dictated and such was the state of mind in which by so true a knowledge of children, and of sickness and death overtook her. Her last the world; those strokes of feeling which work had been rapidly composed amid the betray and excite emotion? Who but a sufferings of a visibly declining state of woman, who but a mother, would have been health. On finishing it, she appeared to have able to express reason with so much tender- reached the limits of her strength. It is seldom ness, and have softened it without impair- that superior endowments are met with in a ing its force? I have said that the princi-woman, without her being oppressed by the

At this period Madame Guizot was disturbed by subtile uneasinesses, which yet attest a mind endowed with faculties superior to her opinions. But these gradually declined, and a profound peace was established in that mind which had been more easily disturbed than she was willing to believe. Such is the empire of reason and of happiness. Madame Guizot in a fixed position, governed by an affection which united the ardor of love to the calmness of duty, was led back by study and reflection, by serious and tender advice, to those pure and firm principles which alone can appease the torments of the mind, and which formed in her the indissoluble alliance of feelings and opinions, of the wants of the heart and the requirements of reason; and without ever returning to the practical belief of the French established church, she raised for herself a faith no less lively and no less strict, which did not less touch her heart or govern her conscience, than the most powerful doctrines of sacred tradition.

load the most distinguished woman still remains a feeble being; and Madame Guizot was strong only in character and mind. However peaceable was her life, she enlivened it with the fire of her genius, and expended it in the midst of happiness and repose. Afflicted with a deep and slow disease, she daily became weaker, but not desponding. For nearly a year she struggled against the malady, which she strove to banish or to overcome; then, as ever, she placed her duty and her hopes in opposition, but at length she acknowledged the vanity of her efforts, and perceived that her decree had gone forth; she submitted to it without a murmur, and from that moment her resignation was complete. Surrounded by the most tender and devoted cares, affected and gratified by the love of which she was most assured, equally supported by reason and by faith, she gave herself up to the contemplation of her death. In the intervals of her pains she continued to converse upon the truths which had enlightened and guided her life.

by incessantly comparing her destiny with her nature, we seem to be exhibiting a system; but we cannot reproduce the action and the harmony of the whole person; we cannot restore that unity of nature, which, in her, reconciled so many varieties, and almost contrasts. Thus, nothing was lost, nothing was indifferent, in that noble life; in it everything had an aim, a value, a rule; at the same time good principles had taken such possession of her mind, that she obeyed them without effort, and in the fulfilment of her duties she appeared to be following her own inclinations. Reason had not given her either coldness or constraint. Strong in suffering, she was tender and almost weak in happiness; she relished the real enjoyments of life, the most simple pleasures afforded her a childish delight. Almost always deprived of ease and leisure, chained to study, confined in towns, she could not breathe the country air without a kind of intoxication. The enjoyment of the arts, and those of nature, excited in her a real emotion. No one has better proved the truth of those words, I believe, of Rousseau's: "Strict morals preserve the tender affections."

On the 30th of July, 1827, she bid a tender and tranquil farewell to her husband, her son and her family; she told them that she felt her end was approaching. On the The idea of duty was ever present to her 10th of August, at ten in the morning, she mind; she applied it with rigor to the sorequested her husband to read to her. He lution of moral inquiries; injustice inspired read a letter of Fenelon's, for a sick per- her with indignation, immorality with a disson; he then commenced a sermon of Bos-gust which she knew not how to restrain; suet's, on the immortality of the soul; and to cause grief to any one was to her almost in the midst of the sermon she expired. an impossibility; to witness even merited Thus was verified a prediction, or a hope, pain only excited her pity; and her kindof which she had delighted to converse. Al-ness disarmed her justice. But it was esmost always harassed with cares and la- pecially the sufferings of strong minds that bors, she neglected none, and gave herself excited her deepest compassion; in their up to them with ever increasing devoted- sorrows she recognised her own, and suffermess, as if an inexhaustible reserve of hap-ed with them. piness and peace had been insured to her.

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It is," she says, "on the necessity of an immutable futurity that I travel on incessantly, and that I shall end by passing from one world to the other. But I expect a light and a clearness in my latter days, that will render this passage easy and certain." (Letter written in 1822.)

There remains little more to add; I do not think I have forgotten any of the traces of that image, which time can never efface from the remembrance of Madame Guizot's friends; but in writing, it is necessary to consider everything separately, and to make a person known, to analyse the whole that constitutes individuality in its full grace and freedom. In successively retracing the qualities and opinions of Madame Guizot,

There is so much mind in the works of Madame Guizot, that it seems superfluous to speak of what she showed in conversation. Her's was strikingly original; and she sometimes astonished to such a degree, that it was necessary to be accustomed to it to find it pleasing. But with a little experience, it was soon discovered that al though her language was different from that of most people, she was quick in comprehending every one, and arrived by sure, though, perhaps, circuitous means, at the knowledge of all that was true, at sympathy for all that was good. With her everything proceeded from herself; she repeated nothing, she borrowed nothing, even from reading; no book pleased her that did not make her think; she required a new effort

to make her own of even common ideas; she never yielded to an opinion until after she had herself discovered its motives, or adopted it, unless stamped with her seal. The reasons which determined her mind were not always the most natural, but they were her own, like those of Montaigne. She did not always take the most simple method of arriving at the truth, but she would at length attain it, and her mind knew no rest until she did. Then all opposition was at an end; there was no struggle in her, no

discord, she yielded to it implicitly; her judgment governed her will, truth reigned in her by right divine.

This excellence is rare; it is, perhaps, the highest ambition of the philosopher. This immutable harmony of the mind and the heart must in every ease be loved and admired, but can it ever be more worthy of, admiration and of love, than when it unites the wisdom of a sage to the heart of a woman?

From the Edinburgh Review.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher; the Text formed from a new collation of the early editions: with Notes and a Biographical Memoir. By the Rev. ALEXANDER DYCE. 11 vols. 8vo. London 1843-1846.

- Or the beautiful though faulty works which | scene, situated about a mile from this mocompose these volumes, a considerable num- dern abbey of Saint Bernard. In the midst ber were the fruit of one of those singular of a little valley, on a meadow beside a literary Partnerships, which, hardly known dashing brook, is to be seen at the present in any department of poetical art except day a group of ivy-mantled ruins. There, the drama, have repeatedly been formed by in the thirteenth century, a pious lady dramatic poets both in our own country and founded an Augustinian nunnery, in honor elsewhere. The old English drama abounds of Saint Mary and the blessed Trinity. with examples. None of these alliances, Confiscated on the suppression of the relihowever, was so steadfast, none so success-gious houses at the Reformation, the priory ful, none so evidently prompted by "con- of Gracedieu and its demesne were acquirsimility of genius," as that which has, by ed by John Beaumont, a lawyer of old faa consent almost universal, elevated the mily. He afterwards became Master of inseparable names of the two friends, Fran- the Rolls; but was soon charged with corcis Beaumont and John Fletcher, to a ruption, disgraced, and deprived of his place in our dramatic literature second only estates. to that of the one unapproachable master of the art.

In regard to the personal history of the two poets, all that is known scarcely suffices to do more than excite a vain curiosity. But few facts have been collected which have any interest in themselves, or any value as the groundwork of critical speculation. The principal of these relate to the family history of both.

66

His widow recovered from the wreck of his fortunes the manor of which he had dispossessed the nuns of Lady Roesia de Verdun. Her son Francis, distinguishing himself in his father's profession, was appointed one of the Justices of the Common Pleas, and received knighthood from the hands of Qecen Elizabeth. He is spoken of as a grave, learned, and reverend judge." He married a lady of the family of Pierrepoint in Nottinghamshire; Among the western hills of Leicester- from which long afterwards came the shire, there has lately been erected a mo- sprightly Lady Mary Wortley Montague. nastery, which, inhabited by thirty or forty Of Judge Beaumont's three sons, the Cistercian monks, carries back our thoughts eldest died young. John, the second, infrom the busy world of manufactures by herited the estates, and obtained a baronwhich it is surrounded, to the antiquities etcy. Sir John Beaumont was a man of reand the poetry of the middle ages. Simi-flection, taste, and feeling. In right of his lar reflections are prompted by another "Bosworth Field," and other poems, he is