She was received in the highest circles of our metropolis with an enthusiastic admiration, which no doubt was rendered in part to the avowed enemy of Napoleon, as well as to the woman of genius. Sir James Mackintosh, in his journal, gives a lively description of the manner in which she was _fêted_. “On my return I found the whole fashionable and literary world occupied with Mad. de Stael—the most celebrated woman of this, or perhaps of any age.... She treats me as the person whom she most delights to honour. I am generally ordered with her to dinner, as one orders beans and bacon: I have in consequence dined with her at the houses of almost all the cabinet ministers. She is one of the few persons who surpass expectation; she has every sort of talent, and would be universally popular, if in society she were to confine herself to her inferior talents—pleasantry, anecdote, and literature, which are so much more suited to conversation than her eloquence and genius.” A very characteristic observation was made by the late Lord Dudley—“Mad. de Stael was not a good neighbour; there could be no slumbering near her, she would instantly detect you.” The publication of her long-expected work on Germany maintained the interest which Mad. de Stael had excited, during the period of her residence in England. It is comprised in four parts,—on the aspect and manners of Germany,—on literature and the arts, as there existing,—on philosophy and morals,—and on religion and enthusiasm. For an analysis of it we may best refer to the elaborate criticism of Mackintosh, in the Edinburgh Review, No. XLIII, who gives it the high praise of “explaining the most abstruse metaphysical theories of Germany precisely, yet perspicuously and agreeably; and combining the eloquence which inspires exalted sentiments of virtue, with the enviable talent of gently indicating the defects of men and manners by the skilfully softened touches of a polite and merciful pleasantry:” and of being “unequalled for variety of knowledge, flexibility of power, elevation of view, and comprehension of mind, among the works of women, and in the union of the graces of society and literature with the genius of philosophy, not surpassed by many among men.”