INTRODUCTION.
In Lady Blennerhassett's enthusiastic and encyclopaedic book on Madame de Stael she quotes approvingly Sainte-Beuve's phrase that "with _Corinne_ Madame de Stael ascended the Capitol." I forget in which of his many dealings with an author who, as he remarks in the "Coppet-and-Weimar" _causeries_, was "an idol of his youth and one that he never renounced," this fancy occurs.

It must probably have been in one of his early essays; for in his later and better, Sainte-Beuve was not wont to give way to the little flashes and crackles of conceit and epigram which many Frenchmen and some Englishmen think to be criticism.

There was, however, some excuse for this.

In the first place (as one of Charles Lamb's literal friends would have pointed out), Madame de Stael, like her heroine, did actually "ascend the Capitol," and received attentions there from an Academy.

In the second, there can be no doubt that _Corinne_ in a manner fixed and settled the high literary reputation which she had already attained.