cleverness in hitting off and illustrating the weak points
of her character and writings.

"Hardly," he resumes, "has the female Nicolai reached Stockholm, when
she begins with her insipid comparisons. 'The golden brilliancy of
Naples and the magic spell of Venice are here entirely wanting.' Is it
possible? Only see what striking remarks this witty and travelled dame
does make! In the next page she says:--'Upon this very day, exactly one
year since, I was in Barcelona; but here there is nothing that will bear
comparison with the land of the aloe and the orange. Three years ago I
was on the Lake of Como, in that fairy garden beyond the Alps! Five
years ago in Vienna, amongst the rose-groves of Laxenburg;' &c. Who
cares in what places the Countess has been? Surely it is enough that she
has written long wearisome books about them. Every possible corner of
Italy, Spain, and Switzerland is dragged laboriously in, to furnish
forth comparisons; and soon, no doubt, a similar use will be made of
Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia. These comparisons are invariably shown to
be to the disadvantage of Sweden; and although the lady is oftentimes
compelled to confess to the beauty of a Swedish landscape, she never
forgets to qualify the admission, by observing how much more beautiful
such or such a place was. For example, she is standing one night at her
window, looking out on the Maeler lake. 'I wrapped my mantilla
shiveringly around me, stepped back from the window, shut it, and said
with a slight sigh: In Venice the moonlight nights were very different.'
Really this would be hardly credible, did any other than a countess
assure us of it."

"Every thing in Sweden is disagreeable and adverse to her; roads,
houses, food, people, and money; rocks, trees, rivers and flowers;
but especially sun, sky, and air. She talks without ceasing of
heavy clouds and pouring rains, but even this abundance of water is
insufficient to mitigate the dryness of her book."

"I am always sorry," says a witty French writer, "when a woman becomes
an author: I would much rather she remained a woman." Does Mr Boas,
perchance, partake this implied opinion, that authorship unsexes; and is
it therefore that he allows himself to deal out such hard measure to the
Countess Ida? Even if we agreed with his criticisms, we should quarrel
with his want of gallantry. But it is tolerably evident that if Madame
Hahn-Hahn, finding herself on the shores o