, Miss Burney, Mrs. Macaulay, Madame Dacier, Madame de la
Fayette,--women who proved that they could do something more than merely
write letters, for which women ever have been distinguished from the
time of Heloise.

At the head of all these women of genius Madame de Stael stands
pre-eminent, not only over literary women, but also over most of the men
of letters in her age and country. And it was only a great age which
could have produced such a woman, for the eighteenth century was more
fruitful in literary genius than is generally supposed. The greatest
lights, indeed, no longer shone,--such men as Shakspeare, Bacon, Milton,
Corneille, Racine, Boileau, Moliere,--but the age was fruitful in great
critics, historians, philosophers, economists, poets, and novelists, who
won immortal fame, like Pope, Goldsmith, Johnson, Addison, Gibbon,
Bentley, Hume, Robertson, Priestley, Burke, Adam Smith, in England;
Klopstock, Goethe, Herder, Schiller, Lessing, Handel, Schlegel, Kant, in
Germany; and Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Marmontel, D'Alembert,
Montesquieu, Rollin, Buffon, Lavoisier, Raynal, Lavater, in France,--all
of whom were remarkable men, casting their fearless glance upon all
subjects, and agitating the age by their great ideas. In France
especially there was a notable literary awakening. A more brilliant
circle than ever assembled at the Hotel de Rambouillet met in the salons
of Madame Geoffrin and Madame de Tencin and Madame du Deffand and Madame
Necker, to discuss theories of government, political economy, human
rights,--in fact, every question which moves the human mind. They were
generally irreligious, satirical, and defiant; but they were fresh,
enthusiastic, learned, and original They not only aroused the people to
reflection, but they were great artists in language, and made a
revolution in style.

It was in this inquiring, brilliant, yet infidel age that the star of
Madame de Stael arose, on the eve of the French Revolution. She was born
in Paris in 1766, when her father--Necker--was amassing an enormous
fortune as a banker and financier, afterwards so celebrated as finance
minister to Louis XVI. Her mother,--Susanne Curchod,--of humble Swiss
parentage, was yet one of the remarkable women of the day, a lady whom
Gibbon would have married had English prejudices and conventionalities
permitted, but whose marriage with Necker was both fortunate and happy.
They had only one child, but she was a Minerva. It seems t