66 tribute to the superiority of her genius-and, even to the most intellectual, that homage is dear. It is said of Madame de Staël that she exclaimed on beholding Lady Ch—C—ll, that she would exchange all her own talents for the fair Scotchwoman's beauty. For one who valued so much and so deservedly her " pauvre genie,” it is to be more than doubted whether she would have put her resolution into practice, if it had been made feasible:-but it is much for her even to have said so. What then, must have been the feelings of a person still in the earliest youth, whose triumph was at once that of personal loveliness, and of talents of so many various kinds! For eminent success, indeed, in that species of representation which, as one so capable of judging as Voltaire declares,—combines an hundred pleasures into one,—it may be said that an hundred qualities are needed. Is it then to be wondered at if Mabel was, in some degree, made dizzy by the events of that night? CHAPTER IX. You could witness then That I was precious in the eyes of men; CRABBE. MABEL's career continued. The success of her first appearance was but a prelude to a reputation the most splendid and unrivalled. The master-pieces of Racine were produced for the purpose of her personating his heroines; and the operas of that time were almost too limited for the due exhibition of her musical powers. She would occasionally introduce into them some of those simple ballads, accompanied only by her own guitar, which first had charmed Oberfeldt -and to which he always recurred with fondness and delight in the midst of her more elaborate acquirements. She became the rage; and those who have witnessed one of those sudden bursts of celebrity which have attended successful efforts in our own days, can form an idea of all that is included in the term. the It is not to be supposed that so great an alteration in her habits of life had no effect upon a character not yet fully developed. On the contrary, it operated upon it much. In the first place, the necessary firmness and self-possession under the public gaze tended to brush away finer particles of perfect delicacy of mind—and, to a certain degree, to indurate her whole nature. Her mind was altogether of too proud and high an order for her to be soiled by the corruption she witnessed around her-but the very habit of repelling that (and it was much) which she deemed unworthy, undoubtedly had an effect the contrary of adding softness, or confiding warmth and tenderness, to her disposition. She was compelled to hold herself alcof—and to look upon approaches with suspicion. This, certainly, contributed to call into more frequent action those ingredients of bitterness which had never been wholly eradicated from her temperament. The admiration she excited was sometimes of an humiliating nature; her disdain had often in it a mixture of mortification, and what can be so painful as this? The first attack of this kind that was carried sufficiently far to excite these feelings to an outbreak was from the King himself. He found that rumour had spoken too feebly rather than too loud, concerning her-and he at once marked her as his prey. Extravagantly devoted to women, little scrupulous either of who was the object, or what were the means, of his pursuit,— and, above all, a royal wooer-Augustus seldom had reason to complain of the cruelty of those for whom he sighed : Lightly from fair to fair he flew, And loved to plead, lament, and sue ;- and, in addition to the advantages he derived from his situation, his personal attractions were great, and his experience in the commerce des femmes' was unbounded. Without any hesitation, therefore, and with but little precaution, were his advances made to Mabel. * Marmion. There cannot be a blunder more great, and more frequently insurmountable, than the first. advances towards a woman being made upon false grounds of presuming easy and speedy success. Whether the error arise from undue arrogance on the part of the wooer of his own merit and powers, or from unfounded ideas of the lady's laxity, the effect is nearly the same. It is an insult of the most offensive kind, and conveyed in the most offensive manner-and is almost certain, even in minds of ordinary calibre, to excite a disgust which can never afterwards be surmounted. But in dispositions of a proud bent, such a result is inevitable;-what then, must it have been with Mabel, to whom the consciousness of her equivocal position did but render the affront more insupportably galling? There could scarcely, indeed, be a finer scene for the contemplation of a student of character, or for the study of a painter, than the scornful and indignant rejection by Mabel, of the propositions made to her by Augustus in terms very little measured. The flashing of the passionate eyethe heaving of the indignant breast—the lip of |