and in some of the smaller pieces of Lady Craven.  On some of the works of Madame de Stael—­her Corinne especially—­there is a still deeper stamp of the genius of her sex.  Her pictures of its boundless devotedness—­its depth and capacity of suffering—­its high aspirations—­its painful irritability, and inextinguishable thirst for emotion, are powerful specimens of that morbid anatomy of the heart, which no hand but that of a woman’s was fine enough to have laid open, or skilful enough to have recommended to our sympathy and love.  There is the same exquisite and inimitable delicacy, if not the same power, in many of the happier passages of Madame de Souza and Madame Cottin—­to say nothing of the more lively and yet melancholy records of Madame de Stael, during her long penance in the court of the Duchesse de Maine.

We think the poetry of Mrs. Hemans a fine exemplification of Female Poetry—­and we think it has much of the perfection which we have ventured to ascribe to the happier productions of female genius.

It may not be the best imaginable poetry, and may not indicate the very highest or most commanding genius; but it embraces a great deal of that which gives the very best poetry its chief power of pleasing; and would strike us, perhaps, as more impassioned and exalted, if it were not regulated and harmonized by the most beautiful taste.  It is singularly sweet, elegant, and tender—­touching, perhaps, and contemplative, rather than vehement and overpowering; and not only finished throughout with an exquisite delicacy, and even severity of execution, but infused with a purity and loftiness of feeling, and a certain sober and humble tone of indulgence and piety, which must satisfy all judgments, and allay the apprehensions of those who are most afraid of the passionate exaggerations of poetry.  The diction is always beautiful, harmonious, and free—­and the themes, though of great variety, uniformly treated with a grace, originality, and judgment, which mark the same master hand.  These themes she has occasionally borrowed, with the peculiar imagery that belongs to them, from the legends of different nations, and the most opposite states of society; and has contrived to retain much of what is interesting and peculiar in each of them, without adopting, along with it, any of the revolting or extravagant excesses which may characterize the taste or manners of the people or the age from which it has been derived.  She has transfused into her German or Scandinavian legends the imaginative and daring tone of the originals, without the mystical exaggerations of the one, or the painful fierceness and coarseness of the other—­she has preserved the clearness and elegance of the French, without their coldness or affectation—­and the tenderness and simplicity of the early Italians, without their diffuseness or languor.  Though occasionally expatiating, somewhat fondly and at large, among the sweets of her own planting, there is, on the whole, a great condensation and brevity in most of her pieces, and, almost without exception, a most judicious and vigorous conclusion.  The great merit, however, of her poetry, is undoubtedly in its tenderness and its beautiful imagery.  The first requires no explanation; but we must be allowed to add a word as to the peculiar charm and character of the latter.