If there had been only one difference between this and its author's earlier attempt at novel-writing, that difference would have given _Corinne_ a great advantage. _Delphine_ had been irreverently described by Sydney Smith, when it appeared a few years earlier, as "this dismal trash which has nearly dislocated the jaws of every critic with gaping." The Whigs had not then taken up Madame de Stael, as they did afterwards, or it is quite certain that Mr Sydney would not have been allowed to exercise such Britannic frankness. _Corinne_ met with gentler treatment from his friends, if not from himself. Sir James Mackintosh, in particular, was full of the wildest enthusiasm about it, though he admitted that it was "full of faults so obvious as not to be worth mentioning." It must be granted to be in more than one, or two important points a very great advance on _Delphine_. One is that the easy and illegitimate source of interest which is drawn upon in the earlier book is here quite neglected. _Delphine_ presents the eternal French situation of the "triangle;" the line of _Corinne_ is straight, and the only question is which pair of three points it is to unite in an honourable way. A French biographer of Madame de Stael, who is not only an excellent critic and an extremely clever writer, but a historian of great weight and acuteness, M. Albert Sorel, has indeed admitted that both Leonce, the hero of _Delphine_, who will not make himself and his beloved happy because he has an objection to divorcing his wife, and Lord Nelvil, who refuses either to seduce or to marry the woman who loves him and whom he loves, are equal donkeys with a national difference. Leonce is more of a "fool;" Lord Nelvil more of a "snob." It is something to find a Frenchman who will admit that any national characteristic is foolish: I could have better reciprocated M. Sorel's candour if he had used the word "prig" instead of "snob" of Lord Nelvil. But indeed I have often suspected that Frenchmen confuse these two engaging attributes of the Britannic nature. A "higher moral tone" (as the phrase goes) is not the only advantage which _Corinne_ possesses over its forerunner. _Delphine_ is almost avowedly autobiographical; and though Madame de Stael had the wit and the prudence to mix and perplex her portraits and her reminiscences so that it was nearly impossible to fit definite caps on the personages, there could be no doubt that Delphine was herself--as she at least would have liked to be--drawn as close as she dared. These personalities have in the hands of the really great masters of fiction sometimes produced astonishing results; but no one probably would contend that Madame de Stael was a born novelist. Although _Delphine_ has many more personages and much more action of the purely novel kind than _Corinne_, it is certainly not an interesting book; I think, though I have been reproached for, to say the least, lacking fervour as a Staelite, that _Corinne_ is.