Delphine, had shed too much comfort over the close of my life: I was not sufficiently punished: but prevail on him at least to pledge his word to me that he will not entail misery on Matilda; let my faults be buried with me, and let their fatal consequences not pursue my me-, mory after my death: prevail on him to conceal from Matilda the history of his marriage, and his love for you.-To whom, said Leontius, whose indignation had by this time given place to the deepest dejection to whom do you wish I should promise happiness? alas! I have nothing, nothing to shed around me but sorrow!-If you refuse me that request also, said madame de Vernon, it will be too great severity towards me; yes, too great indeed.-I felt her faint away in my arms, and I hastened to replace her on the sofa.

Delphine, animated by a generous impulse which raised her above even her affection for Leontius, approached madame de Vernon, and said to her in a solemn voice, in a tone of inspiration :-Yes! poor creature! it is too much; but that cruel man, deaf to our prayers, is not the interpreter of Heaven's justice., I take you under my protection: if he insult you, it is I whom he will offend: if he do not pronounce at your feet such words as carry comfort to the soul, it is my heart that he will alienate. You desire that he may pay regard to your daughter's happiness: well! I render myself responsible for that happiness: I swear to her expiring mother that it shall be sacred in my sight; and, if Leontius wishes to preserve my esteem, and that remembrance of love which is still dear to us amid our regrets, if he wishes to do that, he will not disturb Matilda's peace; he will never derogate from the respect which she owes to the memory of her mother. Hapless woman! whose heart Leontius has not scrupled to wound! I pledge myself as surety for the accomplishment of your wishes: listen to me I entreat you; listen to me alone.-Yes, said madame de Vernon, in a voice scarcely intelligible, I hear you, Delphine, I bless you: the blessing of a dying person is always holy; receive it, come to me. . . . . She leaned her head on Delphine's shoulder, and Leontius, at the sight of that spectacle, fell on his knees at the foot of madame de Vernon's bed, exclaiming :-Yes, I am a wretched maniac! yes, Delphine is an angel! Pardon me, that she also may grant me her forgiveness: pardon me whatever mischief I may have done to you.-Do you hear, Sophia? said madame d'Albémar to madame de Vernon, who no longer made any answer to Leontius: do you hear his injustice is already past; his heart is coming back to you.-Yes, replied Leontius, it is coming back to you, and he is perhaps going to die.-In fact, so many agitations, added to so long a journey in the depth of winter, and without any rest, had thrown him into such a condition, that he dropped senseless on the floor in our presence!

Judge of my terrour, judge what must have been the feelings of Delphine! She could not quit madame de Vernon, whose ice-cold hands grasped hers; and in this situation she saw Leontius before her stretched as it were lifeless on the floor. Madame de Vernon, amid the convulsions of the last agony, once more seised Delphine's hand before she expired. Delphine, in a state which baffles all description, supported in her arms the dead body of her friend, and, with her eyes Fiveted on Leontius, exclaimed :-Madame de Lebensey! gracious

Heaven! is he yet alive?.... tell me.... On hearing my shrieks madame de Mondoville came hastily in. Her mother was no more; and her husband, whom she thought in Spain, lay senseless before her eyes. She attributed his misfortune to the shock he had received from her mother's death, and, deeply affected by seeing him in such a condition, she displayed, in assisting him, a presence of mind, and a sensibility capable of exciting an interest in her favour.

Leontius was carried to another apartment. Delphine had all this while remained motionless, and in a bewildered state of mind. She still supported on her bosom the body of her lifeless friend, and by her looks of anxious interrogation enquired of me what I thought of Leontius. I assured her, that he would soon recover, and that his emotion and fatigue were the sole cause of the accident which had befallen him. At this moment madame de Mondoville, who had left the room, returned with her priests, and all the apparatus of death. Delphine then understood that madame de Vernon had breathed her last; and, gently placing on her bed that woman at once interesting and culpable, she kneeled down before her, kissed her hand with tenderness and respect, and withdrawing from the dismal scene, suffered herself to be conducted home by me, without uttering a word.

I caused her to be put to bed, for she was manifestly in a very strong fever. We have repeatedly sent to make enquiries concerning M. de Mondoville; he is recovered from his swoon, but is still greatly indisposed, though not to a degree that threatens danger. M. Barton, who happily arrived yesterday evening, came this morning to see Delphine; but she was so strongly agitated, that it would not have been prudent to suffer her to converse with him. He only told me, that having prevailed on madame d'Albémar to abstain from writing to Leontius, for fear of irritating him against his mother-in-law, he had nevertheless thought it right to say a few words for the purpose of making his mind easy, in a letter which he had addressed to him: but the obscurity itself of that letter, added to Delphine's silence, had thrown Leontius into such a state of anxious uncertainty, that he instantly set out from Spain, in hopes of reaching Paris before madame d'Albémar's departure for Languedoc.

M. Barton did not conceal from me that he felt great uneasiness respecting the resolutions of Leontius: he receives madame de Mondoville's attentions with gentleness: but when he is alone with M. Barton, he appears unalterably determined to spend his life with madame d'Albémar. His passion for her has now risen to such a height, that there would seem to be no possibility of restraining it. M. Barton is without hope, except in the courage and virtue of madame d'Albémar herself. He thinks that henceforward she ought to avoid the sight of Leontius, and to pursue her project of going to live with you. That such also is Delphine's resolution I cannot doubt; for I heard her say in a low voice, when she thought there was no person near her :-No! I ought not to see him again: I love him too well: he too loves me : no, I ought not, I must depart.

Yet what is to become of these unfortunate lovers? with their present feelings, and in their present condition, how can they live either sparate or together? My husband has come to me here, and has restored my courage which had begun to fail me. He has told me,

that he will do every thing in his power to afford consolation to madame d'Albémar; but what service can even he, the most enlightened and refined of men, render her? Does your perfect friendship, madam,' suggest any thing, which does not occur to us, that is calculated to console her? I readily admit the energy of madame d'Albémar's character, and the severity of her principles; but, alas! it is too certain that no determination can henceforward reconcile her happiness and her duty.

Accept, madam, the homage of my esteem for you.

· Eliza de Lebensey. Vol. ii. P. 452.

This extract is sufficient for every purpose. The second volume is devoted almost exclusively to the loves of Leontius and Delphine, carried on, nevertheless, without the suspicion of madame de Mondoville, to whom it is the resolution of both parties that they will conduct themselves with the utmost degree of kindness. Blended with this passionate intercourse, we find an insufferable portion of the cant of what may be called sentimental religion, which is, nevertheless, scarcely sufficient to preserve the very ardent but unfortu nate pair from positive criminality of connexion. Delphine, however, still continues in this respect pure, notwithstanding the fiery trials to which she is often exposed. Madame de Mondoville herself becomes at length acquainted with the amour; and, finding that the peace of mind of the latter is now in danger of being completely ruined, Delphine collects courage enough to act as she should have acted at first; and abruptly, though in an agony of grief, quits Paris, leaving the impetuous Leontius in total ignorance of her retreat, lest he should again pursue her.

In vol. III, we learn that madame de Mondoville is a few months afterwards delivered of a son, and that she shortly falls a sacrifice to the maternal duty of suckling him, with a constitution too delicate for such an office. The child survives his mother but a few days; and Leontius, having paid to each the respect which common decency requires, sallies forth, like a knight-errant, in pursuit of the idol of his heart. He at length learns that she has retired to a convent in Switzerland: he pursues her with all possible speed; but finds, alas! that his own freedom is now acquired too late-for Delphine has assumed the veil.-Here madame de Staël should, in our judgement, have concluded her work, unless, indeed, she had made an Abelard of Leontius, as she might have made an Eloïsa of Delphine. We say, might have made-for, though both solemnly devote themselves to their Creator, there is an infinite difference in the circumstances of these unfortunate fair ones: the former renouncing the world from her very soul, and most cor

dially dedicating her life to the services of the religion she equally professed and believed; the latter only pretending to take the veil as the lesser of two evils, still glowing with love for Leontius, panting for an opportunity of being united to him, disgusted with the ceremonies of the Romish religion, and a confirmed infidel in her heart. It is for madame de Staël herself to reconcile this open dissimulation and mock-" ery of the Supreme Being, with the honest and unblemished soul which she still paints her accomplished heroine as possessing. Love is seldom at a loss to accomplish the object he has in view; and Delphine, in a few days, learns, that, in consequence of the neglect of some formalities during the period of her noviciate, she is still at liberty, and that the convent has no right to detain her. Leontius and herself receive the intelligence with cager delight; and she escapes from the fetters that confine her. Happiness, however, is not to be her portion. Leontius cannot even now brave the opinion of the world, and have it told him that he had seduced a young nun from her vows to the Almighty, and had run away with her from her convent. In a fit of despair, he leaves her abruptly, with a view of entering into the royalist army of France, that he might shortly fall, and thus terminate his miseries: he finds a relative of his own attacked and overpowered by an outpost of republican troops: he extricates him from his danger, but is taken prisoner himself, is tried, and condemned to be shot. Delphine, dreading the violence of his irritable disposition, follows him, with her friend M. Serbellane; hears of his imprisonment, visits him in his dungeon, and finally accompanies him to the place of execution, where she falls at the same moment with himself, from the effect of poison she had previously taken.

In this termination, we can perceive nothing either of dramatic dignity or dramatic justice: it is in every respect contemptible; and exemplifies the art of sinking, in a greater. degree than any publication we have lately met with. The novel is, nevertheless, upon the whole, as we have already observed, highly seductive and captivating: it displays much knowledge of the world, and a considerable acquaintance with the human heart. The translation is easy and natural; and, so far as we have compared it with the original, which is now before us, correct. Decadence, presension, and some other words, however, which we have occasionally met with, are not English: nor is Leontius either, French, English, or Spanish. If the French termination had been rejected, the Spanish should have been restored; and, for Leonce de Mondoville, we should then have had Leontig de Mondovilla.

ART. VIII.-Sermons, on various Subjects, doctrinal and meral; selected, abridged, and translated, from l'Année Evangélique of F. J. Durand. By the Rev. Richard Munkhouse, D.D. &c. 8vo. 7s. Boards. Rivingtons. 1802.

PROFESSOR Durand distinguished himself by his lectures as well as his discourses at Lausanne. A collection of the latter was published in Switzerland, and very favourably received; and from these the writer before us has compiled the present volume, not confining himself strictly, however, either to the arrangement or words of the original author. Hence he very properly doubts whether he should call his work a translation; and the reader is advertised not to pass an improper judgement on any thing it contains, or impute rashly an error to the original, for which the compiler alone is perhaps responsible. We cannot hesitate to join in the general commendation of the author, from the specimens thus afforded us : yet we may with propriety call in question the translator's method, as it would certainly give greater pleasure to read each discourse as it came from the author himself, than to have it thus carved out at another man's discretion: and, as it is proposed that a second voJume should be added, there seems to be still less reason for presenting this before us to the public in so mangled a form. In general, the spirit of the original is well preserved: Gallicisms will at times occur; and the translator does not always bear it in mind, that he should use words familiar to an English audience. Thus, we find Phoenice for Phoenicia; and the expression that whole nations have deposed to the obstinacy of their unbelief,' to convey a sentiment not easily to be derived from these words.

In the preface, the writer laments the present miserable state of the Swiss, and ascribes to them, as is very commonly the case, many perfections in their former state, to which they were assuredly strangers. It is not generally considered that this unhappy country was much divided at all times, both in religion and politics; that the grossest superstition abounded in several parts; and that, even in those which boasted of the greatest share of liberty, a system of dependence on foreign courts, and the degrading custom of hiring themselves out to foreign governments, were still common, The once virtuous and gallant Swiss' were deservedly the admiration of Europe; but for the application of this character, we must travel some centuries back, before their manners had been debauched by the immorality introduced from foreign courts. Philosophism, one of the ignes fatui of the present day, and which has so much flourished in Helvefia, was readily conveyed, by those who at length returned