totype, he has lived to see his influence superseded, and to confirm the deduction of science, that all "radical causation" is to be found only in the everlasting laws of nature and principles of truth, and that human well-being consists in the intelligent recognition and cheerful obedience of these primal decrees.

7*

Che Correspondent.

MADAME DE SE VIGNE.

ONE of the most intimate and oldest friends of Madame de Sevigné, remarkable no less for excellent judgment than religious sincerity, tells her, in a letter," Votre âme est grande, noble, propre à dispenser des trésors et incapable de s'abaisser au soin d'en amasser." M. de Grignan, her son-in-law, writes, after her death, "Ce n'est pas seulement une belle-mère que je regrette; c'est une amie aimable et solide, une société délicieuse ;" and his wife declared, in her bitter grief, "je n'ai pas la force de lever les yeux assez haut pour trouver le bien d'on doit venir le secours.' These expressions, fresh from living hearts, are worth pages of analysis in unveiling the secret of her epistolary success. Too noble to hoard up an idea, a feeling, or a grace that could give pleasure to another;-a kind of spirituelle Lady Bountiful, whose society, even to those most familiar with it, was pronounced delicious; and the object of an affection that gave birth to such profound regret-do we not at once see that it was the

generous instinct of her heart that bore along with its free tide the musical current of words, the playful bubbles of wit, and the alternating undulations of sense and sensibility?

The spirit of love which "casteth out fear," made her pen frank and bold; the desire to make another participate in all she enjoyed, gave a life-like vivacity to her narrative, whether describing a royal interview, the effect of the announcement of Mademoiselle d'Orleans' proposed marriage, a fashionable scene, a country landscape, or a French cook's suicide from wounded amour-propre. She excites our sympathies by her confidence; and we share her amusement at court, her relish of literary society, her anxiety on account of her son's devotion to Ninon, and the sublime resignation of her dying hour, as we should those of a truly estimable and lovely woman personally known and cherished. It may be, as some critics have asserted, that the idiomatic purity of her style is not immaculate; and it is true that quite an unequal interest attaches to the numerous letters ascribed to her; it may be, also, that the recondite felicities of unstudied yet perfect art some of them display, cannot be fully appreciated by any but those "to the manner born," and that the esprit, for which we have no English synonym, is the great charm of her letter-writing ;yet its frankness, vivacity, and naïveté, its piquant, easy, and varied grace, if they do not originate in, at least owe their felicitous combination to essential

traits of womanly character; and it is as a genuine literary development of these, that the letters of Madame de Sevigné are permanently interesting.

Letters unendeared by personal affection are acceptable to public taste in proportion as they catch the spirit and embody the attractions of good society. Tact, vivacity, and agreeability, are as essential to the one as the other; and great earnestness equally incompatible with both. Hence the rarity of excellence in this department of literature; such a blending of nature and cultivation as constitutes the epistolary art, being quite as uncommon as the same thing in a companion. The very nature of a letter is egotistical; it is literally printed talk-a communication such as we should utter orally, if the person addressed were by. Accordingly, the transfer of a letter from domestic and social life to literature, is always a hazardous experiment. They are either too unreserved to be read by a third party without indelicacy, too strictly private to interest the world, or so sacred in their revelations and tone that the glance of a careless eye would be profanation. On the other hand, stripped of all individuality of feeling, devoted wholly to generalizations, conveying no echo from the heart and animation from the real life of the writer, published letters are vapid. It is from these intrinsic difficulties that a collection of letters seldom answers any other purpose than that of reference for the facts and opinions appertaining to celebrated men.

The eloquence of indifference, as Hazlitt calls wit, is an uncommon gift, and it is the charm of all renowned letter-writers. A favourable social position, to afford materials of general interest, and give the habit of spirited and pleasing expression, fine powers of observation, and that kind of sympathetic curiosity that loves to note and communicate what the panorama of life reveals, are quite as needful to a good correspondent. These advantages were possessed, in an eminent degree, by Horace Walpole. His ruling passions were anecdote and vertú; had they been either more human or more spiritual, he would have been more noble and interesting as a writer, and more loveable as a man, but far less successful as a correspondent. If we open any one of the many volumes of letters from his pen, we find some familiar allusion to a renowned character, that brings it nearer to us than any history or memoirs, however circumstantial; an amusing bit of court gossip, which yields an instant glimpse into the whole comedy of life; or a graceful compliment, that, artificial as it is, for the moment, gratifies our taste, as would a mosaic or a miniature in the author's cabinet.

The lofty and exquisite creations of literature, which captivate the reason and enlist the heart, are not always wholesome; and as the gravest statesman is better for an occasional tea-table chat, the enthusiast and the student find in the elegant trifling of such letters an unexciting table-land in the field of