man, who is in love with her. Sophie (who, by the bye, is English) behaves in the noblest manner as soon as she discovers that her feelings are reciprocated, and leaves the home of which she has unwittingly destroyed the peace. Her guardian and his wife are no less equal to the occasion, and Milord Henri Bedford, Sophie's slighted swain, is inspired by their example. Everybody expresses his or her sentiments in polished and prolix verse, and the curtain finally falls on four loftily eloquent and magnanimously miserable people. The style is not inflated, but the piece is very dull, and, while betraying little of the writer's future talent, reveals two of her defects, exaggeration of sentiment and a want of humour.
To the same date as Sophie belong Jane Grey, a tragedy in five acts, also in verse, of no real merit; another tragedy, Montmorency, and three tales—all romantic and tiresome.
Finally, in 1788, when she was nearly twenty-two, Madame de Staël published her Letters on Rousseau, and thus established her position as an aspirant to literary fame. The book, coming from a woman, made a great sensation. Indeed, this fact of her sex must never be lost sight of in judging the reception accorded to Madame de Staël's works. She attempted subjects of historical and philosophical interest which no woman in her country or age had approached before her.
As might be expected, she was an ardent admirer of Rousseau. Her sympathy with the philosophy of Helvetius was naturally slight. She required something declamatory, earnest, and didactic. In a glorification of natural sentiments to result in some future apotheosis of humanity lay the key to her creed.
