And _apropos_ to Rousseau, I shall merely observe, that there is, and can be but one opinion with regard to his conduct in the affair of Madame d'Houdetot: it was abominable. She thought, as every one who ever was connected with that man, found sooner or later, that he was all made up of genius and imagination, and as destitute of heart as of moral principle. I can never think of his character, but as of something at once admirable, portentous and shocking; the most great, most gifted, most wretched;--worst, meanest, maddest of mankind! * * * * * Madame du Chatelet and Madame d'Houdetot must for the present be deemed sufficient specimens of French poetical heroines;--it were easy to pursue the subject further, but it would lead to a field of discussion and illustration, which I would rather decline.[152] Is it not singular that in a country which was the cradle, if not the birth-place of modern poetry and romance, the language, the literature, and the women, should be so essentially and incurably _prosaic_? The muse of French poetry never swept a lyre; she grinds a barrel-organ in her serious moods, and she scrapes a fiddle in her lively ones; and as for the distinguished French women, whose memory and whose characters are blended with the literature, and connected with the great names of their country,--they are often admirable, and sometimes interesting; but with all their fascinations, their charms, their _esprit_, their _graces_, their _amabilite_, and their _sensibilite_, it was not in the power of the gods or their lovers to make them _poetical_. FOOTNOTES: [148] Memoires et Lettres de Madame d'Epinay, tom. 1. p. 95. [149] M. Somariva is well known to all who have visited Paris, for his fine collection of pictures, and particularly as the possessor of Canova's famous Magdalen. [150] See Lady Morgan's France, and the Biographie Universelle. [151] Stanza 77, and more particularly stanza 79. [152] In one of Madame de Genlis' prettiest Tales--"Les preventions d'une femme," there is the following observation, as full of truth as of feminine propriety. I trust that the principle it inculcates has been kept in view through the whole of this little work. "Il y a plus de pudeur et de dignite dans la douce indulgence qui semble ignorer les anecdotes scandaleuses ou du moins, les revoquer en doute, que dans le dedain qui en retrace le souvenir, et qui s'erige publiquement en juge inflexible." CONCLUSION. HEROINES OF MODERN POETRY. Heureuse la Beaute que le poete adore! Heureux le nom qu'il a chante! DE LAMARTINE.