tional spirit and feeling as if we had been on the banks of the Shannon instead of the banks of the Neckar. The singer, an amateur, and a most extraordinary musical genius, who had joined our circle from Heidelberg, did not understand, or at least did not speak, English; yet there was no Irish, or Scotch, or English air which he had not at the ends of his fingers; and when he struck up, "Of noble race was Shenkin," it was as if all the souls of all the Welsh harpers since had inspired him. This gifted person was, however, of your sex, and our discourse, at present, is of mine.

I heard an English lady, who had resided for some time in Germany, remark that the "German mothers spoiled their children terribly;" in other words, the children lived more habitually with the mothers, were under little restraint, and behaved in the drawing-room much as if they were in the nursery, and were treated, as they grew up, on more equal terms.

That high exterior polish, those brilliant conversational talents, which I have seen in many English and French women, must be rare among the Germans: they are too simple, and too much in earnest. The trifling of a polished French woman is often most graceful; the trifling of an Englishwoman gracious and graceful; but the

trifling of a German woman is, in comparison, heavy work; to use a common expression, it is not in them. I met with one satirical woman.

You know I once ventured to assert that no woman is naturally satirical, and to touch upon the causes which foster this artificial vice-and here was a case in point. It was that of a mind which had originally been a piece of nature's noblest handiwork, first bruised, then gradually festered by the action of all evil influences.

MEDON.

And, lilies that fester are far worse than weeds," so singeth the poet; but do you make the cause also the excuse? How many minds have endured the most withering influences of misery and mischief, if not untouched, at least uninjured-unembittered!

ALDA.

I grant you: but before we assume the power of judging, of computing the degree of virtue in the latter case, of vice in the former, we should look to the original conformation of the human being the material exposed to these influences. Fire hardens the clay and dissolves the metal. This plate of tempered steel, on which I am going to etch, shall corrode, effervesce, be absolutely

decomposed by the action of a few drops of nitrous acid, which has no effect whatever on this lump of wax. Now, carry this analogy into the consideration of the human character-it will spare us a long argument.

As to the chapter of coquettes

MEDON.

Ah! glissez, mortel, n'appuyez pas !

ALDA.

And why not?-Don't you know that I meditate, with the assistance of certain professorins, a complete Natural History of Coquettes, (in quarto,) which shall rival the famous Dutch treatise on Butterflies, in heaven knows how many folio volumes? In the first part of this stupendous work we intend to treat systematically of every known species, from the coquetterie instinctive, which may be termed the wild genus, indigenous in all females, up to the coquetterie calculée et philosophique, the most refined specimen reared in the hot-bed of artificial life. In the second part, we shall treat the whole history of Coquetterie, from that first pretty experiment of dear Mamma Eve, when she turned away from Adam,

As conscious of her worth,
That would be woo'd and not unscught be won,"

down to-to-how shall I avoid being personal? -down to the Lady Adeline Amundevilles of our own day. With some women coquetterie is an instinct; with others, an amusement; with others, a pursuit; with others, a science. With the German women it is a passion: they play the coquette as they do every thing else, with sentiment, with good faith, with enthusiasm.

MEDON.

Why then it is no longer coquetterie--it is love!

ALDA.

I beg your pardon; it is something very different. True, perhaps, "that thin partitions do the bounds divide;" but, to a nice observer, the division is not the less complete. In short, you can imagine nothing more distinct than an English coquette and a German coquette; in the first case, one is reminded of Dryden's fanciful simile

"So cold herself, while she such warmth express'd,
'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream!"

But, in the latter case, it is Diana bending the bow, and brandishing the darts of Cupid; and

VOL. I.

I

with an unsuspicious gaucherie, which now and then turns the point against her own bosom.

I observed, and I verified my own observations, by the information of some intelligent medical men, that there is less ill-health among the superior rank of women, in Germany, than with us; all that class of diseases, which we call nervous, which in England have increased, and are increasing in such a fearful ratio, are far less prevalent; doubtless, because the habits of social life are more natural. The use of noxious stimulants among the better class of women is almost unknown, and rare among the very lowest classeswould to heaven we could say the same! No where, not even at Munich, one of the most profligate of the German capitals, was I ever shocked by the exhibition of female suffering and depravity in another form, as in the theatres and the streets of London.

I have been asked twenty times since my return to England, whether the German women are not very exaltée-very romantic? I could only answer, that they appeared to me less calculating, less the slaves of artificial manners and modes of thinking; more imaginative, more governed by natural feeling, more enthusiastic in love and religion, than with us. If this is what my English