The society of her children and her friends could not console her for the loss of her father and exile from the country she loved. Her first occupation was to publish the writings of Necker, accompanied by a biographical memoir, in which she pours forth, with touching earnestness, all the ardour of her filial affection. Her health sunk beneath her sorrow. [Sidenote: 1805. Ætat. 39.] To revive her spirits and change the scene she visited Italy. There, as everywhere, her astonishing powers of conversation gathered an admiring audience round her. She enjoyed, with all the warmth of her disposition, the delights afforded by that enchanting country; and, impelled to express on paper the overflowing of her thoughts, she embodied her enthusiasm, her pleasure, and the knowledge she gained, in her novel of "Corinne." There is a charm in that work that stamps it as coming from the hand of genius. The personages live, breathe, and speak before you. We hope or fear for, admire or censure them, as if they were our friends. She speaks of love with heartfelt knowledge of the mighty powers of passion, and of all those delicate, so to speak, fibres and evanescent tints that foster and adorn it. The faults of such a book are a very secondary consideration. The Italians will not allow that it is by any means a true representation of society in their country; and any one who has lived there can perceive that she had but a superficial knowledge of Italy and the Italians; still she gives a true picture of the surface such as she saw it. Her account of Corinne's life in England is admirable. The English, with all their pride, are less vain than the Italians, and readily acknowledge their faults. Every English person is at once astonished and delighted with the wonderful truth of her sketch of county society in England. In this novel, as in "Delphine," the heroine dies broken-hearted. Her lover proving false, she lives miserably a few years, and then closes her eyes on a world grown dark and solitary. Madame de Staël was naturally led to portray death as the result of sorrow; for when we are miserable, we are apt to dwell on such as the dearest relief; yet we do not die. The authoress also might wish to impress on men an idea of the misery which their falsehood produces. That is a story as ancient as Dido, and told by Virgil more impressively and beautifully than by any other writer. For the dignity of womanhood, it were better to teach how one, as highly gifted as Corinne, could find resignation or fortitude enough to endure a too common lot, and rise wiser and better from the trial.