The chief works of Madame de Stael, and her peculiarities as an author, have already been spoken of. One work, published after her death, and the most powerful of all, remains to be mentioned. In the "Considerations on the French Revolution," she sought to blend the memoir with the philosophical history. The faults are what might have been expected. The details, too minute for the one, are too scanty for the other. In the selection of these she was biased by her personal feelings, but to a degree far less than was to be anticipated. Her feelings were warm and excitable; she had lived in the midst of the events of which she speaks; she had herself been an actor, and her father had borne a conspicuous part, in them; indeed, one grand purpose of the work is to exculpate him. That she should, under these disqualifying circumstances, have produced a work so temperate, and on the whole so impartial--one that exhibits such philosophical depth and comprehensiveness of vision--excites in us wonder and admiration. But it is not as a history that the work is interesting and valuable. It is that it exhibits to us the impressions made by the great events of which she speaks, and the scenes which she witnessed, upon a powerful and original mind. It abounds with profound reflections and brilliant remarks. The style, eloquent and impassioned, is in a high degree conversational, and, as we read it, we almost expect to hear the sound of the voice. The remarkable talent for discrimination and delineation of character, which distinguish her as a novelist, lead us to regret that it did not come within the design of the work to furnish us with historical portraitures of the distinguished personages of the period. The few which she has given us, increase our regret, and mark her as a mistress in the art. LADY HESTER STANHOPE. The third Earl of Stanhope, father of the subject of our present sketch, possessed abilities which qualified him for any station; yet he devoted his ample fortune, his time, and his thoughts, to mechanics and to experiments in science and philosophy; with what success, the Stanhope printing press, many improvements in the process of stereotype printing, and his various papers on the electric fluid, are evidence. He married a daughter of the great Earl of Chatham; and of this marriage, Lady Hester Stanhope was the earliest fruit. She was born in 1776. [Illustration: LADY HESTER STANHOPE.]