long closed to them. The Restoration hailed with eagerness the talented daughter of the minister of the last of the Bourbons; the newspapers were delighted to have a few words from her pen her rooms were thronged with all the representatives of political and literary liberty. Wellington and Blucher, Chateaubriand, Lafayette, and young Guizot came to her house as to the centre of the political movement.' Once more she reigned a queen in the circles of her beloved Paris.

But this was only for a short season. Napoleon escaped from the Island of Elba, entered France, and reached Paris, spreading consternation over the whole face of Europe. Madame de Staël, like crowds of others who had thronged to the capital, again fled from it, and took refuge in her chateau at Coppet, in Switzerland. From thence she went to Italy for the benefit of her husband's health, and then returned in 1816, when, at last, Napoleon had fallen for ever, and she no longer feared his unmanly persecutions. Fain would she have resumed the sway that she had held in the political world, but things had changed, and her old friends had changed their views. "Sensible of these things, and already stricken by increasing illness, she fled for refuge to her family, or, looking higher, to the fidelity of Him who never fails us. Yet she died surrounded by all those choice spirits whose names we love to associate with her own. It was in Paris in 1817, on the 14th July, that she breathed her last."

Jane, Duchess of Gordon,

EMINENT IN ENGLISH POLITICAL CIRCLES IN THE TIME OF GEORGE III.

It may not be generally known, that though Great Britain has passed through as many political crises, if not more, than France, fewer of our celebrated women have taken an active part in the politics of the day, than the women of that country. Indeed, it may be said that almost all the celebrated French women of the last three or four centuries have more or less influenced the political world, and exercised their power over their male contemporaries, from the king on the throne down to the revolutionary rabble. Perhaps this has arisen from the less feminine disposition of French women, and their more masculine proclivities, inclining them to mingle in the contentions of the political arena-which is peculiarly the sphere of men, as it is theirs to fight on the battlefield. This view is supported by the fact that those among our own countrywomen who have figured in the political world, have possessed minds of a masculine character that sometimes contrasted greatly with their feminine beauty. As an example of this masculo-feminine class of celebrities in history, the subject of this memoir was one of the most notable.

Her maiden name was Jane Maxwell, daughter of Sir William Maxwell of Monreith, who could trace his descent, through a long line of Scottish ancestry, back to Herbert of Caerlavrock, the first Lord Maxwell. Like most Scotchwomen of high birth, she was proud of her noble ancestry; and it

became her ambition throughout life to add lustre to the family genealogical tree. While yet in the comparative retirement of her father's domestic circle, the fame of her beauty and accomplishments had spread abroad, and a song was composed in her honour, entitled "Jenny of Monreith." She was the toast of the day among the admirers of wit and beauty.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, the famous portrait-painter of the last century, has given us a highly-finished picture of her in the heyday of her loveliness, of which the following is a graphic description by Grace Wharton :-"Her features were regular; the contour of her face was truly noble; her hair was dark, as well as her eyes and eyebrows; her face long and beautifully oval; the chin somewhat too long; the upper lip was short, and the mouth, notwithstanding a certain expression of determination, sweet and well defined. Nothing can be more becoming to features of this stamp, that require softening, than the mode of dressing the hair then general. Sir Joshua Reynolds has painted the Duchess of Gordon with her hair drawn back, in front, over a cushion, or some support that gave it waviness; round and round the head, between each rich mass, were two rows of large pearls, until, at the top, they were lost in the folds of a ribbon; a double row of pearls round the fair neck: a ruff, open low in front, a tight boddice, and sleeves full to an extreme at the top, tighter towards the wrists, seem to indicate that the dress of the period of Charles I. had even been selected for this most lovely portrait. The head is turned aside-with great judgment-probably to mitigate the decided expression of the face when in a front view."

Notwithstanding these personal attractions, which the superficial observer would have associated with

a mind of soft, feminine mould, her relatives observed, as she grew into womanhood, that in thoughts, conversation, or manners, she wanted grace, and especially the charm of female delicacy. She rarely suppressed her emotions, and at one time her beautiful face would be radiant with smiles, shortly to be followed by expressions of anger, or vice versa, as she was pleased or displeased. In conversation her features displayed great animation, but its effect was not pleasing, and detracted from her commanding beauty in repose. There was a determination and energy in her speech that partook greatly of the masculine character, and sometimes her expressions were more rude than elegant. She seemed to despise the loveable qualities of her sex, or the usages of society in respect of womanly manners, and it is said she sacrificed these for a venal ambition. Be that as it may, had she been of the soft feminine mould her admirers would have desired, she, in all probability, would not have become celebrated in her time. It was the unloveable qualities of energy and determination that enabled her to carry through everything that she attempted. Had she been otherwise, it is probable her name and portrait would only have been handed down to posterity as a beauty of the last century, and nothing more.

Her first step in the ladder of ambition was to marry, in 1767, Alexander, fourth Duke of Gordon, a young man of twenty-four years of age. So far as youth was concerned, she found in him a suitable husband, but he was a man of no energy, except in his fondness for country pursuits. On the other hand, his spirited and ambitious wife saw that the rank of a duchess which she had attained, and her union with the representative of one of the most renowned Scottish families, would add great lustre to her own family and reputation. Moreover, it

happened that in politics the two families were rank Jacobites and Tories, which suited her own political opinions. Nevertheless, she mingled in the Court of George III, where she was held as a woman of irreproachable conduct, though friendly to the exiled Stuarts, Hers was a practical mind, that preferred the substance of wealth and rank to the fleeting breath of admiration,

When in London she took up her residence in the splendid mansion of the Marquis of Buckingham. There, while Parliament was sitting, she held assetblies every evening in the stately saloons, where members of the Houses of Lords and Commons, and ministers of the government, belonging to her party, would converse freely with her on the politics of the day. Not only would she boldly venture her opinions on State policy, but, presuming on her rank, influence, and beauty, would act in the most determined mannet as a " whipper-in" of members to vote for her party on important nights of debate. It is stated that “when a member on whom she had counted was wanting, she did not scruple to send for him, to remonstrate, to persuade, to fix him by a thousand arts," These efforts to influence the political world she especially exercised at the time the Duchess of Devonshire came forward as the female champion of the Whig party. Here it was her ambition, not only to aid the cause she espoused, but to ovet = come a rival in the ranks of the political enemy. In these encounters she generally came off victorious, and for a long time the Duchess of Gordon continued to reign over the Tory party almost without a rival.

While at the acné of her political celebrity, an event happened of a most momentous character, that caused the time-honoured name of Gordon to be held up to opprobrium, in consequence of the insane acts