"The moral vacancy displayed in these quotations corresponds with the shallow manner and half romantic, half French style of the book. Though the first part be written in a fresher and livelier style than the second, there is still not to be found in the whole a single well-determined and clearly-impressed thought, and whenever we imagine that we have hit upon such a thing, straightway we find whirling forth the dust-clouds of an obscure, phrase-laden, highly affected sentimental feeling, which, without any real energy, stirs itself up with repeated 'ohs!' and 'ahs!' and other forced sighs and artificial aids. In place of such thoughts we find a shallow and occasionally insupportably wearisome speech on the ideal of Catholicism, or 'the heathenish abomination in art and literature, which, after the fall of Byzantium was transported thence to Italy, and there received with that love which impels sensuous mortals to joyfully draw into the sphere of his life the new and glittering, because it promises fresh and shining pleasures.'(!) In another place she speaks of the reformers as 'miserable, narrow-minded heads, who should have chosen other ground whereon to exercise their love of quarrelling;' while the second half of her book is confined almost exclusively to the democrats, and the events which took place from 1847 to 1849. In this part the authoress displays the greatest want of intellect, and is sadly wearisome; but her frivolity of manners and morals appears most repulsive in her account of the Reformation. None of the Catholics--not even Cochlæus himself--has so far degraded himself as to interpret in such a vulgar manner the deeds of the reformers (more particularly Luther's) as is here done by--a lady! "If the Countess places at the conclusion of her work the words 'Soli Deo Gloria,' this is merely in accordance with a Catholic custom, and by no means meant in earnest, since the work is more particularly adapted to flatter the vanity and self-conceit of its composer, who cannot imagine why she should suffer the disgrace to belong to the German nation. A vain, coquettish self-regard, an affected, aristocratic-noble nonchalance, and a contradicting, heresy-accusing confidence of judgment, meet us on every side, and render us completely opposed to the pretence and moral vacancy of this book." These are bitter words, and bitterly spoken, when thus applied to a woman. The reader will in their perusal remember that the writer is evidently influenced by a deep feeling against all that savors of conservatism in politics, and shares in an unusual degree the popular German feeling against _emancipiste Frauen_, or women who strive against the bonds which the customs of society have imposed on the sex,--a feeling, which, however creditable it may be when applied to undue extravagances of manners or morals, should be carefully guarded against when it threatens an unconditional restraint of every exertion of feminine genius and talent.