tail and no novelty-his summary of our 'Here Lord Malmesbury appears to have closed this Diary. 6 in his Diary--so that truth itself becomes an auxiliary to falsehood. On the whole we are bound to say, this publication seems to us to be in principle wholly unwarranta. ble that as regards either political events or personal character, it would be in genOf the journal which I have published, and eral a very fallacious guide;-that any which composes this fourth volume, it may be historical value it may have is nearly counsaid that it contains much matter already terbalanced by the false impressions it so known to the reader. I have not suppressed frequently creates-and, finally, that the it on that account, because I think that no cor- confidence and security of private life-the roborative evidence of history can be produced great foundations of society-are seriously so unsuspicious as a diary, in which events and conversations are regularly recorded compromised by a precedent, which is the within a few hours of their occurrence, and more dangerous from the amusement that that by an intelligent observer (like Lord it affords, and the respectable names Malmesbury), whose personal ambition has with which it is unfortunately connected. been satisfied with high rewards, or arrested by incurable infirmity. The man who is in this position, having nothing to hope or to fear, and writing for no immediate purpose of the day, will probably relate history with as little excitement or prejudice as can possibly be found in any active mind.'-vol. iv. pp. 411, MISS BERRY ON FRENCH AND ENGLISH 412. SOCIETY. From the Quarterly Review. England and France: a Comparative View of the Social Condition of both Countries, from the Restoration of Charles the Second to the present time. To which are now first added: Remarks on Lord Orford's Letters-the Life of the Marquise du Deffand-the Life of Rachael Lady Russell-Fashionable Friends, a Comedy. By the Editor of Madame du Deffand's Letters. A New Edition. London, 1844. 2 vols. 8vo. To some of these last observations we have by anticipation replied in the distinction we took between the sincerity of the journalist and the accuracy of the facts or justice of the opinions he records : with that reservation we grant to the noble Editor all the merit that he claims for his grandfather, who is beyond doubt entitled to as much credence as any journalizing politician and quidnunc can be entitled to. But, however trustworthy the author may personally be, it by no means follows that we are to give him that kind of implicit confidence which the Editor seems to chal- WE rejoice in the publication of this lenge. In the first place he is very often excellent and useful essay, as the avowed deceived by a second-hand narrative of production of Miss Berry, because the value facts; but even when the naked fact is of its original remarks upon the society of true, it may be so disguised by being cloth- both countries, in which she has so long ed in black or in white as not to be recog- moved as a member at once admired and nizable. Of such a diary it may be said, beloved, is greatly increased by the authorias the Stoic said of human life in general- ty of her name, a name never to be proταράσσει τοὺς ἀνθρώπους οὐ τὰ πράγματα, ἀλλὰ nounced without the respect due to talents, Ta gì ty Qayμátov doyuára-no one alive learning, and virtue. We place in the front would, we believe, be much disturbed by of our criticism that which all rightly conany of the facts recorded by Lord Malmes- stituted minds must regard as the highest bury, if simply and accurately narrated, panegyric, that she who has experienced and though great and serious pain has been in- enjoyed the pleasures of fashionable as well flicted by the color that he gives them and as literary intercourse more and longer than the opinions which his grave authority pro- any living author, has passed through both nounces upon them. No man, however the frivolities and the corruptions of her honest, or even kind-hearted, can be free times, in Paris as well as in London, withfrom temporary impressions and personal out a shadow of a taint either to her heart, prejudices-which, though they should her feelings, or her principles. The histo have only flashed momentarily across his rian of society in her own as well as in mind, stand permanently Daguerreotyped | former periods, the fond admirer of genius, whatever form it assumed, and the partaker tinged with unworthy prejudice. The sex with a keen relish of all the enjoyments of the author, as well as the nature of the which the intercourse of polished life affords, she has never shut her eyes for a moment to either the follies that degraded or the vices that disfigured the scene, nor has ever feared to let her pen, while it described for our admiration the fair side of things, hold up also the reverse to our reprobation or our contempt. It was a great omission in our journal never to have an article on any of the former editions of this Comparative View'-though we have more than once quoted it as an authority. It now appears, however, with not a few improvementsand with the addition of some other pieces partly published before in separate forms, partly new to the world. The difficulty of giving a sketch of society in any country, still more of exhibiting a comparative view of it in more countries than one, most of all in tracing its varying forms through successive stages of its history, needs hardly be stated or illustrated in any detail. The artist who would execute such a delineation must bring to the task not only a very extensive knowledge of the sciences, the arts, the letters that flourished in the community at different periods, but an intimate acquaintance with the human character, and what is not quite synonymous, an acquaintance with men both in action and seclusion. But, above all, whoever would undertake this task will feel a vast proportion of his materials wholly wanting in all the books that can be written and read; and must draw conclusions from the facts recorded, reasoning according to probabilities, and guided by a nice and familiar knowledge of mankind and of the world. Accordingly, in this branch of history or of moral painting there is hardly any work, the gossiping of numberless memoirs excepted, that can be cited to satisfy a curiosity naturally raised by the great interest of the subject. The few pieces or rather fragments that we could name are exceedingly slight, much affected by prejudice and personal feeling-altogether unsatisfactory. That Miss Berry has entirely succeeded in accomplishing so arduous a work, and has left no room to lament blanks and deficiencies, we shall not undertake to affirm. But it is quite undeniable that she has presented us with a sketch of great power, the result of various and accurate learning, instinct with deep but sober reflection, ever exhibiting a love of justice and of virtue, nor deformed by affectation any more than it is subject, naturally suggests a comparison with Madame de Staël; and it is a high praise to say that though the latter might have written such an Essay as this with more passages of striking eloquence, and a greater variety of original thoughts, might have shown more imagination, and declaimed more roundly,1 her page would have wholly lacked the sober judgment, the careful attention to the truth of her representations, which makes Miss Berry so safe a guide; while it would have abounded in mere conceits, far-fetched fancies, extravagant theories, wholly unsuited to the dignity of the inquiry as destructive of all its uses. The most honorable characteristic of these volumes we have noted; their unexceptionable tendency, their perfect purity in all respects. But they who set a higher value upon talents than upon virtues, will be charmed with the sagacity and temper of the observations, with the fine perceptions, the acute penetration of which the delicacy and quickness of the female mind seems alone capable; while the style is pure, easy, and wholly unaffected, showing the familiarity of the writer both with the study of good models and with the habits of good society. It is not among the least recommendations of the work, that though apparently dealing with a general and even abstract subject, nothing can be more entertaining and even amusing; which is owing, no doubt, to the judicious union of belles-lettres with philosophy, the copious admixture of anecdote, personal and literary, the avoiding of all tiresome dissertation, and, above all, the shunning of political argumentation. Many years have passed since we have taken up a more readable book to enliven the appointed dulness of our ordinary labors. Desirous of presenting our readers with a sample of the manner as well as the lively matter of this work, we meet with one at the threshold. Nothing can be more appropriate than the design, nor happier than the execution of the comparison or simile with which it opens. Here are the first three paragraphs of the Introduction : 'In considering and comparing the manners and habits, the opinions and prejudices, of England and France, it is remarkable that two nations so contiguous, so long and so intimately connected, and having always, either as friends or as enemies, seen so much of each other, should still continue so essentially dissimilar. 'Like country neighbors, of uncongenial 'Even when upon the most friendly footing, we have neither of us disliked hearing our neighbors abused, their peculiarities laughed at, and their weaknesses exaggerated, and have seldom been disposed to do them justice, except when we conceived that we had humbled and worsted them.'-vol. i. p. 1. characters, we have never, during our heredita-party in the lowest state of discredit; and ry and necessary intercourse with each other, the Restoration at once eradicated all the continued long upon good terms, and have rigorous observances of the Roundheads, generally fallen out when any attempts have and set the fashion of the day universally been made to increase our intimacy or unite us in favor of the Cavaliers; introducing at more closely. loose morality, an elegant life, and a free intercourse with the continent, long interrupted; but especially an intercourse with France. Miss Berry makes Buckingham figure largely in the scene; indeed lets him occupy rather a disproportioned space in her narrative and description. The entertainMiss Berry begins by taking a brief view ment, however, received from his humors, of the state of England and France in the and especially from his controversy with the time of Charles I. and the Commonwealth, Irish Friar, sent by the Duke of York and as much of the state of society in both (James II.) to convert him, form a very countries as is necessary before entering on agreeable ingredient in the composition. the proper subject of her work, the history Upon the principle of corruptio optimi pessiof its changes after the era of the Restora-ma, we think she has judiciously selected tion. The comfort of the people at large as the most striking proof of the inmoral in England, the general diffusion of moder- and indecorous state of society the scene ate wealth and enjoyment of ease, with-in which the judges who had a day or two out the modern contrast of superabundant before condemned Algernon Sidney to die, riches and squalid poverty: the insulation exhibited themselves in a drunken debauch of the country from the continent, with at a city marriage, attended by the mayor, which all the connexion of travel and foreign the sheriffs, the aldermen, and many of the residence, so usual in former ages, had nobles. At the same time our author most ceased in consequence of religious differences the austerity of religious feelings and demeanor in the bulk of the nation, and the relaxed morality of the prominent section of the patrician order, all afford a marked contrast to the lofty refinement of manners which distinguished the nobles as a class in France, including all the landed proprietors of any account-the freedom from restraint whether of religious or moral ties which all polished society enjoyed-and the wretched poverty of the great body of the people, the cultivators of the soil, the dealers in merchandises, the handicraftsmen, the few who exercised any thing like manufacturing industry; in a word the gens taillables et corvéables, as they were wittily and truly called in reference to the state-taxes they paid and the feudal burthens they endured. justly remarks that the indecent and licentious manners of the great in the metropolis by no means indicate those of the people at large. The regard for religion was still maintained among the venerable gentry who seldom stirred from their provinces, and even in towns generally among the middle and humbler classes; their moral habits were assailed, but not overcome or changed; and the ancient virtue of the rural gentry, clergy, and yeomanry, as well as the tradesmen, remained entire, to overthrow the tyranny of the restored family under the next reign, and to save, with the liberty and religion, we may truly add, the monarchy of England. Then follows a full and interesting account of society in France during the same period; but rather than abridge or analyze it, The work properly begins with a com- we shall extract the judicious and correct pendious account of English society after statement which our author gives of a very the Restoration. It presents a still greater important subject-the differences of the contrast than even that of France to the French and English national character, as republican_times which immediately pre-exemplified in the civil and military transacceded. The extreme severity of the tions of the two countries in these times of fanatical days, in which asceticism was trouble. blended with religion, and made almost the test of faith, had been united to levelling haps nowhere more strongly marked than in opinions and rebellious conduct. The de- the motives and conduct of the contemporary struction of the Commonwealth, which its civil wars of France and England. The excesses and the misconduct of its chiefs Fronde was directed entirely against individhad brought about, also left the democratic ual character-our Rebellion against princi 'The difference of national character is per of M. de St. Aulaire and Lord Mahon. ples of government. Both may be said to j in these passages she anticipated so much have failed in their object, the one by the es- of what has since been exhibited and extablishment in power of Cardinal Mazarin, the pounded more fully in the historical pages other by the Restoration of Charles II. But the war against principles had served to develope the human mind, and to throw light on the real end and only true means of government. The war against individual character had debased the mind, and given expansion, only, to private pique and hatred. It took away all dignity of motive, and all shame of abandoning or supporting leaders, except as they rose or fell with the wheel of fortune. The Parliament of Paris, after having put a price on the head of Mazarin in 1653, publicly harangued him as the saviour of the state in 1660, without any other change in circumstances than his having established his authority. By this conduct they lost the power ever to do more than make useless remonstrances against measures which they had neither the right to oppose, nor the virtue to control. But the Parliament of England, which had defended five of its members from the King himself in person, when coming to seek their punishment in 1642, preserved and developed within it the seeds of that power, which, in 1676, voted the exclusion of the only brother of the reigning King from the succession to the throne, and, in 1688, spoke the voice of the nation in declaring that brother for ever an alien to that throne, of which he had proved himself unworthy. 'Nor is the difference of the two national characters less remarkable in the conduct than in the motive of their civil commotions. 6 With us, the troops were enlisted, not as the follower of such or such a leader, but called on to defend by arms, in the last resort, a solemn league and covenant between the governors and the governed, which they had all individually sworn to observe and to maintain. The few followers who surrounded the standard of the unfortunate monarch, when first erected against such opponents, proved how entirely a conviction of the identity of their own rights, with those they were called on to assert, was necessary to bring them into action. 'The great Condé, and the still greater Turenne, while enlisting troops, throwing themselves into fortresses, and making treaties with Spain to expel a powerful minister the moment he opposed their individual pretensions, appear to the unprejudiced eyes of posterity merely employing a morbid activity to get possession of power which they knew no more than their opponent how to use. All idea of bettering the condition of the country was alike out of the question on either side. Nor were these leading personages, in fact, better informed of their real interest and real duties, or less vulgarly ignorant of every principle of civil liberty, on which they supposed themselves acting, than the lowest follower of their camp.'—vol. i., p. 108—111. The sketch which is subjoined of the female society in the two countries is exceedingly entertaining, and fully proves the contrast between the two to be in this particular much greater than even that of their respective statesmen, and courtiers, and churchmen. The Duchess de Longueville here, of course, occupies a large space: in fact she is treated of with disproportioned fulness, and even minuteness, as Buckingham had been in the English chapters. The same want of keeping may be charged and the comparative view of the Irish and upon the length of the dramatic criticism, English theatres; but it has a redeeming virtue in the accuracy of its description and the unbiassed fairness of the judgments pronounced. It is, indeed, one of the most remarkable portions of the work before us. The era of the Revolution and the subsequent reigns of Queen Anne and the two first Brunswick princes, afford the materials for copious and interesting sketches, both of a general kind and of individuals whose eminent qualities affected the state of society; and here our principal fault with this essay is to be found. The account is quite accurate, and is both distinctly and luminously given, of the low state into which the arts fell under princes so little capable of appreciating their value as our illustrious deliverer and his very submissive but little significant consort, and her dull though worthy sister, with whom we may justly in this particular class the two first Georges. The description of society, too-correct, unenlightened, unrelieved, unvariegated, sombre-is well, if it is somewhat succinctly given; and it forms a great contrast to the political features of the age, full of what the newspaper language of our day-borrowed from novels, and mixed with slip-slop, any thing but English-terms stirring,'-marked by public violence, by foreign wars and civil strife, and even in peace full of factious broils and tainted with parliamentary corruption. Plenum variis casibus, atrox præliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa etiam pace savum.' But our objection lies to the individual portraitures and to the principle upon which the author has confined her pencil to those traits which she conceives alone belonged to their social intercourse. Thus, she appears to have It is no small praise to Miss Berry, that thought that we had only to contemplate the great writers of the English Augustan | Europe by his steady love of peace and his age (as it is called, we think with her, excellent administration-the results of his somewhat affectedly), in respect of their great, and, indeed, brilliant talents. But, character, and especially their manners and in general, the whole of this part of the their currency as members of society; their work is executed with ample knowledge of good or bad lives might influence it by way the subject, as well as with most exemplary of example; their social powers might di- fairness. The account of Louis XIV. and versify it and variegate its aspect; but their of Madame de Maintenon is admirable; the immortal writings she seems to consider as lesser figures of the group, both in their almost wholly foreign to her purpose. time and in that of his grandson, are given Hence it is that hardly any note is taken of with spirit and with truth. So are the Voltaire Pope, while of Swift an elaborate and most and the Rousseau-if a little too much is unfavorable character is given, entering in- made of the more than half-mad, more than to his conduct towards Stella and Vanessa half-bad Jean Jacques. One only error with much particularity; while for aught we can think the author has fallen into. that appears in her pages, Pope might nev- She catches at a publication by Voltaire's er have written the Dunciad' or translated valet de chambre, (Longchamp,) in order to Homer, nor Swift given to the world the expose, not so much his master's weakimmortal Travels of Gulliver.' Indeed, nesses as those of his celebrated, but very but for a stray allusion to the Essay on unamiable friend, Madame du Chatelet. Man,' rather in reference to Bolingbroke, Now, this is really a kind of evidence so its suggester, than to its author, neither tainted that in the courts of literature it Pope might have been supposed a poet or should be held inadmissible, as in the an author at all, nor Swift anything but an courts of law it is, generally speaking, held Irish parson and an ill-user of two unfortu- unworthy of credit. The peace and the safenate women. This silence on authors, as ty of Social Intercourse' depends upon such, is, moreover, not sustained consistent- this rule being held nearly inflexible; and ly and throughout; for the greatest pains we lament that the able and just historian are bestowed upon dramatic writers, the of that intercourse should have committed stage, and its actors, as if society took a breach of it, probably through inadvertmuch of its color from this department of ence to the principle which we have just literature, and none at all from other com- ventured to lay down. positions, except in so far as their authors. mixed in social intercourse; and, indeed, another exception is made in favor of Bolingbroke, whose whole character, literary and political, as well as social, is somewhat largely dwelt upon. We hold it to be quite clear that there is the greatest fallacy in this classification. Swift's personal manners 'No wonder that a proud and high-spirited and demeanor in company could exercise people should wish to shake off any part of the weight of degradation which fell on the very little influence on society at large; his whole nation during the three long years of concealed habits, whether amorous, or ava- the Reign of Terror. No wonder that they ricious, or capricious, could exercise none wish to confine the atrocities and the follies at all; while his writings must needs have (for they remained inseparable) which stain produced, as they still do produce, a great this disgraceful period to a few individuals, effect upon the intellect, the taste, the lansold to foreign influence, and the general acguage, and, generally, the condition of quiescence of the country to a combination of England. The author approaches to our own times, and gives a strongly-drawn, though not at all exaggerated picture of the Revolution in 1789. We gladly cite a passage in which profound sense is conveyed in striking language: circumstances. This combination will be found to resolve itself into what we have already The French history and description dur- mentioned as the more than efficient causes ing the period to which our remarks are of the national disgrace,-the previously deapplicable-the latter portion of Louis graded political existence of a people remarkXIV.'s, the Regency, and the whole of his able for the quickness and mobility of their successor's reign-is rich in various in-feelings, and the talents and ambition of the middle orders of society, who, unprepared by struction and amusement. The account of the Regent's licentious life is, perhaps, liberty, found themselves suddenly in possesany previous education for the exercise of civil too little relieved with the set-off which sion of absolute power. This quickness and should have been admitted of the vast bene-nobility of feeling, which often originated, fits conferred upon his country and upon and in every instance increased the evils of |