a most affectionate wife, she united all the true characteristics of virtue, a firm religious belief, and a great elevation of soul. Her thoughts were pure: meditation, however, did not tend to enlighten her ideas; in amplifying them she thought to improve them, but in extending them she lost herself in hyperboles and metaphysical abstractions. She seemed to behold certain objects through a mist which magnified them to her eyes; her expressions, on such occasions, became so bombastic, that their meaning would have appeared ridiculous, had it not been known to be ingenuous. It might be truly said of her, that religion and justice formed the ground-work of all her duties. Her conduct proved at all times irreproachable and exemplary.

No sooner was Mr. Necker appointed to the management of the finances, than Madame Necker made his power serve to enlarge the exercise of her active benevolence. She contributed to the improvement of the internal regulations of the infirmaries of the metropolis, and undertook the special superintendance of an hospital which she founded at her own expence, near Paris, and which became the model of foundations of that kind. All her literary productions attest her care for suffering humanity. Her Essay on too

precipitate Burials, her Observations on the founding of Hospitals, and her Thoughts on Divorce, breathe an ardent zeal for the happiness of her fellow-creatures; and her sentiments were always in unison with her writings.

To make her husband known, to gain him the favour of literary men, the dispensers of fame, and to cause him to be handsomely spoken of in the highest circles, Madame Necker had formed a literary society, which used to meet once a week at her house. Along with Thomas, Buffon, Diderot, Marmontel, Saint Lambert, and other celebrated writers, who attended these meetings, they were honoured by the most distinguished residents of foreign courts, especially the Marquis de Caraccioli, ambassador of Naples, Lord Stormont, the ambassador of Great Britain, and Count de Creutz, the Swedish ambassador, whose mild philosophy, modest virtue, and eminent talents, received every where an equal share of esteem and admiration.

But, of all the academicians with whom Madame Necker had associated, in order to strengthen her mind by the aid of their genius, she placed none upon a level with Thomas and Buffon. The former she used to call the man of the age, and the latter the man of all ages. The venera

tion and attachment which she felt for these two persons, bordered on adoration; she considered their authority as part of her creed. It was particularly in the school of Thomas, a school so fertile in tinsel wit and confused metaphysics, that she became a slave to that affected style which, as it is continually aiming at elevation and grandeur, conceals her amiable mind, and fatigues, without interesting the reader.

Under the guidance of such a mother, Miss Necker acquired with ease that immense variety of knowledge which astonishes in her writings, and that brilliant superiority of style which renders their study so delightful, notwithstanding a degree of affectation which they occasionally betray, though much less frequently than the works of Madame Necker. Charmed with their early display, her parents neglected nothing to cultivate her talents. They were soon enabled to devote all their time to this object in a rural

retreat.

Miss Necker was scarcely thirteen years old, when her father, impelled by an eager desire of praise, which tormented him during the whole course of his life, published the Account rendered to the king of his administration, and availing himself of the unexampled success with

which it was received throughout France, demanded to be admitted into the privy council. It was in vain that his religion was urged as an obstacle. He flattered himself that the fear of losing him would overcome this religious scruple: he persisted, and threatened to resign; but he became the victim of his presumption. His resignation was accepted on the 25th of May, 1781. He retired to Switzerland, where he bought the baronial manor of Copet, and he there published his work on the administration of the finances.

At the end of a few years, Mr. Necker reappeared occasionally at Paris. Those of his friends who were truly his, and not the friends of his situation, visited his house as they had done while he was in office. Count de Creutz introduced to him the Baron de Staël Holstein, who had just been sent to him from Sweden, as one of the Swedish embassy, and the latter was immediately admitted into Mr. Necker's society. Young, and of a handsome figure, he had the good fortune to please Miss Necker. As the king of Sweden shortly after recalled Count de Creutz, in order to place him at the head of the department of foreign affairs, in his own country, he was succeeded by the

Baron de Staël-Holstein. Invested with the dignity of a Swedish ambassador at the court of France, and professing the protestant religion, Baron de Staël soon became the envied husband of a rich heiress who had been courted in vain by many French noblemen. His happiness however was not much to be envied; not that Madame de Stael was without attractions. Her appearance, though not handsome, was agreeable; her deportment noble. She was of the middle size, graceful in her expressions and in her manners. She had much vivacity in her eyes, and much acuteness in her countenance, which seemed to heighten the pointed wit of her remarks. Her faults consisted in too great a carelessness in her dress and an extreme desire of shining in conversation. She spoke little, but in aphorisms, and with the evident intention to produce effect. The unhappy anxiety to become renowned, which she derived from her father, and the pedantic tone which she could not help contracting in the society of her mother and Mr. Thomas, must no doubt have been disagreeable to a man, simple and unaffected in his words and actions. But it was chiefly the great superiority of her talents over those of the Baron, that soon destroyed