FEMALE PROMOTERS OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 



67 



graphy. Lucas had, when a boy, 

 been sent to Spain for education, 

 but on Ids return was captured by 

 a " Salee rover," fend taken to Mo- 

 rocco as a slave. After three years 

 he was released, and was subse- 

 quently nominated the English vice- 

 consul in the country into which 

 he had originally been brought as 

 a captive. Sixteen years later he 

 came to England again, and was 

 appointed Oriental interpreter to 

 the British Court. When in this 

 capacity, he undertook the African 

 expedition, and embarked for Tri- 

 poli in 1788, intending to proceed, 

 over the great desert, to Gambia, 

 but he was prevented from fulfill- 

 ing his purpose, and his researches 

 were brought to a speedy termina- 1 

 tion. He appears to have obtained, 

 however, a good deal of information, 

 and though much of it was hearsay, 

 and though many of his informants, 

 like those of Ledyard, told him 

 absurd fables, he made respectable 



progress in the objects of the so- 

 ciety. 



These were amongst the earliest 

 explorers of the enormous region 

 concerning which, more than half 

 a century later, we have so much 

 to learn. But no one who has 

 trodden in the steps of Ledyard or 

 Lucas, or who has ventured on the 

 task of making his way through the 

 inhospitable deserts of Africa, has 

 entered on his work in a more chi- 

 valrous spirit, or told his tale more 

 unaffectedly than that of this young 

 and distinguished traveller. His 

 j ourney, like that of his predecessors, 

 ended in sickness and .discomfiture, 

 but he undertook it with the noblest 

 motives, went through it, so long 

 as his physical power permitted, 

 with unflagging resolution, and re- 

 corded it in an earnest and manly 

 narrative, which, we write the words 

 in all sincerity, no one can read 

 without admiration and esteem for 

 its author. 



FEMALE PEOMOTEES OE SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 



MADAJIE DE STAEL. 



Madame de Stiiel, with all her 

 splendid talents and extraordinary 

 vivacity, had little or no relish for 

 the beauties of nature. "Oh for 

 the rivulet in the Rue du Bac !" she 

 exclaimed, when some one pointed 

 out to her the glorious Lake of 

 Geneva. Many years later, she 

 said to M. Mole, "Si ce n'etait le 

 respect ^humain, je n'ouvrirais pas 

 ma fenetre pour voir la baie de 

 Naples; tandis que je ferais cinq 

 cents lieues pour aller causer avec 

 un homme d'esprit." The reader 

 will be reminded of Charles Lamb, 

 invited down to the Lakes by Words- 

 worth, sighing for the silversmiths' 

 shop-windows in Cheapside, and 

 "the sweet shady side of Pall Mall." 



At the age of twenty, this lady 

 had attained a dangerous reputation 



as a wit and a prodigy. She was 

 passionately proud of the brilliant 

 society in which she lived, but set 

 at nought its restraints, and tramp- 

 led upon its conventionalities, in a 

 style which the men forgave in con- 

 sideration of her genius, and the 

 women in consideration of her ugli- 

 ness. Her vivacity was excessive, 

 and her talk interminable. But 

 her influence in Paris was so great, 

 that Napoleon banished her from 

 France. During her wanderings, 

 she made the friendship of Schiller 

 in Germany, Avho, writing to 

 Goethe a description of her extra- 

 ordinary intellectual capacity, was 

 under the necessity of qualifying 

 his praise by saying, " One's only 

 grievance is the altogether unprece- 

 dented glibness of her tongue. In 

 England, Byron celebrated her vir- 

 tues and attractions in a pompous 



