S T A 
S T A 
mous publication on the French revolution, complete the 
list of her productions. 
Madame de Stael, on the 15th of July, 1817, sank into a 
calm sleep, while in a chair, enjoying the calm air of her 
garden, and awoke no more. She had had so strong a pre¬ 
sentiment that her death would take place thus, that, for 
some months she went to sleep with dread. Previous to 
her death, she acknowledged a marriage with M. Rocca ; 
so that is properly the name she should bear in bio¬ 
graphy. 
Mad. de Stael twice visited England; formerly during the 
revolutionary conflict, when she resided in a small Gothic 
house at Richmond, which is visible from the river above the 
bridge; and again, about 1814. During her stay in Lon¬ 
don, she was much courted by persons of the highest rank, 
and of all parties. She is universally described as very 
pleasant and sprightly in conversation, and perfectly ami¬ 
able. Her opinion of English society is more favourable 
than foreigners in general are apt to form. 
There is, in the Edinburgh Review, No 60, a very good 
criticism on the general merits of De Stael. The reviewers are 
of opinion that she is “ the most powerful writer that her 
country has produced since the time of Voltaire and Rous¬ 
seau—and the greatest writer, of a woman, that any time or 
any country has produced. Her taste, perhaps, is not quite 
pure; and her style is too irregular and ambitious. These 
faults may even go deeper. Her passion for effect, and the 
tone of exaggeration which it naturally produces, have pro¬ 
bably interfered occasionally with the soundness of her judg¬ 
ment, and given a suspicious colouring to some of her repre¬ 
sentations of fact. At all events, they have rendered her 
impatient of the humbler task of completing her explanatory 
details, or stating in their order all the premises of her 
reasonings. She gives her history in abstracts, and her theo¬ 
ries in aphorisms:—and the greater part of her works, 
instead of presenting that systematic unity from which the 
highest degrees of strength and beauty and clearness must 
ever be derived, may be fairly described as a collection of 
striking fragments—in which a great deal of repetition does 
by no means diminish the effect of a good deal of inconsis¬ 
tency. In these same works, however, whether we consider 
them as fragments or as systems, we do not hesitate to say 
that there are more original and profound observations— 
more new images—greater sagacity combined with higher 
imagination—and more of the true philosophy of the passions, 
the politics, and the literature of her contemporaries—than in 
any other author we can now remember. She has great 
eloquence on all subjects; and a singular pathos in repre¬ 
senting those bitterest agonies of the spirit in which wretch¬ 
edness is aggravated by remorse, or by regrets that partake 
of its character. Though it is difficult to resist her when she 
is in earnest, we cannot say that we agree in all her opinions, 
or approve of all her sentiments. She overrates the impor¬ 
tance of Literature, either in determining the character or 
affecting the happiness of mankind ; and she theorizes too 
confidently on its past and its future history. On subjects 
like this, we have not yet facts enough for so much philoso¬ 
phy; and must be contented, we fear, for a long time to 
come, to call many things accidental, which it would be 
more satisfactory to refer to determinate causes. In her esti¬ 
mate of the happiness, and her notions of the wisdom of 
private life, we think her both unfortunate and erroneous. 
She makes passsion and high sensibilities a great deal too 
indispensable; and varnishes over all her pictures too 
uniformly with the glare of an extravagant or affected enthu¬ 
siasm. She represents men, in short, as a great deal more 
unhappy, more depraved and more energetic, than they are 
i—and seems to respect them the more for it.—In her politics 
she is far more unexceptionable. She is everywhere the 
warm friend and animated advocate of liberty—and of 
liberal, practical, and philanthropic principles. On these 
subjects we cannot blame her enthusiasm, which has nothing 
in it vindictive or provoking; and are far more inclined 
to envy than to reprove that sanguine and buoyant temper 
of mind which, after all she has seen and suffered, still leads 
Vox.. XXIII. No. 158 7. 
509 
her to overrate, in her apprehensions, both the merit of past 
attempts at political amelioration, and the chances of their 
success hereafter. * * * * If Mad. de Stael, however, 
predicts with too much confidence, it must be admitted that 
her labours have a powerful tendency to realize her predic¬ 
tions. Her writings are all full of the most animating views 
of the improvement of our social condition, and the means 
by which it may be effected—the most striking refutations 
of prevailing errors on these great subjects—and the most 
persuasive expostulations with those who may think their 
interest or their honour concerned in maintaining them. 
Even they who are the least inclined to agree with her, 
must admit, that there is much to be learned from her 
writings; and we can give them no higher praise than to say 
that their tendency is not only to promote the interests of 
philanthropy and independence, but to soften, rather than 
exasperate, the prejudices to which they are opposed. 
STAFF, s. plur. staves, [jfcaep, pcap, Sax.; staff, Danish ; 
staff, Dutch.]—A stick with which a man supports himself in 
walking. 
It much would please him, 
That of his fortunes you would make a staff 
To lean upon. Shakspeare. 
A prop; a support.—The boy was the very staff of my 
age, my very prop. Shakspeare. —A stick used as a weapon ; 
a club; the handle of an edged or pointed weapon. A club 
properly includes the notion of weight, and the staff of 
length. 
I cannot strike at wretched kernes, whose arms 
Are hir’d to bear their staves. Shakspeare. 
Any long piece of wood. 
He forthwith from the glittering staff unfurl’d 
The imperial ensign. ' Milton. 
Round or step of a ladder.—Descending and ascending by 
ladders, I ascended at one of six hundred and thirty-nine 
staves , or eighty-nine fathoms. Brown. —An ensign of an 
office; a badge of authority. 
Methought this staff, mine office-badge in court, 
Was broke in twain. Shakspeare. 
All his officers brake their staves; but at their return new 
staves were delivered unto them. Hayward. —An establish¬ 
ment of officers, in various departments, attached to generals 
and armies. [Steff, Icelandic.] A stanza; a series of verses 
regularly disposed, so as that, when the series concluded, the 
same order begins again.—Cowley found out that no kind of 
staff is proper for an heroic poem, as being all too lyrical; 
yet though he wrote in couplets, where rhyme is freer from 
constraint, he affects half verses. Dryden. 
STAFFA, a smalj island of the Hebrides, celebrated for its 
basaltic pillars, and for its remarkable natural caverns. It 
lies about 5 leagues west of the island of Mull, and 3 leagues 
from Icolm-kill. It is of an irregularly oval shape, and about 
a mile and a half in circumference, presenting an uneven table 
land, terminating nearly all round in cliffs of variable height. 
The greatest elevation lies towards the south-west, and ap¬ 
pears by barometrical measurement, to be 144 feet. The 
surface is covered with a rich soil and luxuriant grass. Staffa 
is pastured by a herd of black cattle, but there has long 
ceased to be a house on it; the change in the system of 
Highland farms having materially altered the distribution of 
the population over most parts of this country. The Want 
of some shelter from an occasional storm has frequently 
proved a cause of inconvenience to the visitors who in sum¬ 
mer time crowd to this far-famed spot. It would become a 
serious evil, should a boat be detained for a night or more; 
a circumstance not unlikely to occur during the gales of wind 
which in autumn rise so suddenly on this coast. Great diffi¬ 
culties are generally supposed to attend a landing on this 
island. But, according to Mr. Maculloch, who has pub¬ 
lished a description of the western islands, a landing may 
almost always be effected with safety, in any weather in 
which a boat of the class usually employed in visiting it, 
6 O would 
