The Sun. — 1861-12-10 (London, England)

AMSTERDAM, DEC. 9. The Bank of Amsterdam has raised its rate of discount from 31-, to 4 per cent.  letters referred to in these pages are without exception novelists, and Miss Kavanagh's object has been to show haw greatly women have contributed to the formation of the modern novel in the French  and English literatures. Her selection has been guided, she tells us, by great celebrity, original power, and individual attraction. No living writers are included in her list, the most modem name being that of Mme. de Stael. It is by reason of their recent deaths, we suppose, that she has omitted to notice two distinguished writers of our own day, Mme. Guizot and Mine. Girardin. The plan she has adopted is to give a short biographical sketch, with the outline of that individual history which so often explains and accounts for much in the author's writings, and then to proceed to analyse her works and criticise their merits. In most cases she gives a summary of the plot of the chief novel, with extracts from the best scenes, and thus the reader who probably knows no more of Mlle. Scudery's " Grand Cyrus," or Mme. de Geniis "Rash Vows," than their names, is able to familiarise himself with the style and characters of their writings, and to compare one with another. Commencing her volumes with Mlle. de Gournay, the adopted daughter of Montaigne, Miss Kavanagh gives us next a full account of the life and writings of Mlle. de Scudery, one of the most famous novelists of the seventeenth century. The authoress cites her name as a striking instance of the vicissitudes of literary fame. " Her fifty volumes of poetry and prose were the delight of the most exquisitely polished society France has yet known. They were translated into every European language, and found their way, it is asserted, into Eastern tongues." Princes and men of letters, fastidious critics and indolent fine ladies, watched with eager interest for every one of the ten volumes of a work which took years to appear. " And now," she goes on to say, "it would take years, a lifetime, perhaps, to collect a complete edition of Mlle. de Scudery's works in that city where her fame reached its fulness." The causes assigned for this decadence are three: the length of her tales, the representation of Greeks and Assyrians with the manners and feelings of the French of the sixteenth century ; and lastly, the ridicule of Boileau and Moliere, which Miss Kavanagh shows to have .been unjustly severe. The plot of these long-forgotten novels is brought before us, and their merits and deficiencies pointed out with a s Ailful and discriminating hand. The wild and singular career of Madame de Krudener, now chiefly remembered by her influence over the Emperor Alexander, is told further on in the work, and it is curious to observe how often the ladies spoken of have founded their romances on the events of their own private lives. This seems as strange to our English notions as the interesting suicides so long fashionable in Continental romance. Mme. Riccoboni, an authoress of some celebrity:in the eighteenth century, has the questionable honour of being one of the first to introduce this terminationIn this particular, as in some others, we must admit the earlier writers have the advantage over those of our own day. Mize. Cottin, best known by her charming "Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia," also fills a place in this chronicle, but the two chief lives in the second volume are naturally those of Mme. de Geniis and Mine. de Stael. The eventful and chequered life of the former lady is ably told, and the strange inconsistencies of her not very estimable character are shown. Mme. de Stael is evidently high in favour with her critic, who is never so satisfactory, however, when she touches on politics. Her portrait of Mme. de Steel herself is very ably drawn. We congratulate Miss Kavanagh on having invested an extinct branch of literature with fresh and vivid interest, and with having compiled an agreeable and well-written book out of mans/ ,edious and uncared-for