y sommes tous les deux deguises en femmes."[2] This was a material drawback on her agreeability:  in a moment of excited consciousness, she exclaimed, that she would give all her fame for the power of fascinating; and there was no lack of bitterness in her celebrated repartee to the man who, seated between her and Madame Recamier, boasted of being between Wit and Beauty, “Oui, et sans posseder ni l’un ni l’autre."[3] The view from Richmond Park she called “calme et animee, ce qu’on doit etre, et que je ne suis pas.”

[Footnote 1:  Lady Morgan and Madame de Genlis have been suggested as each presenting a better subject for a parallel.]

[Footnote 2:  “To understand the point of this answer,” says Mr. Mackintosh, “it must be known that an old countess is introduced in the novel full of cunning, finessing, and trick, who was intended to represent Talleyrand, and Delphine was intended for herself.”—­Life of Sir James Mackintosh, vol. ii. p. 453.]

[Footnote 3:  This mot is given to Talleyrand in Lady Holland’s Life of Sydney Smith.  But it may be traced to one mentioned by Hannah More in 1787, as then current in Paris.  One of the notables fresh from his province was teased by two petits maitres to tell them who he was.  “Eh bien donc, le voici:  je suis ni sot ni fat, mais je suis entre les deux.”—­Memoirs of Hannah More, vol. ii. p. 57.]

In London she was soon voted a bore by the wits and people of fashion.  She thought of convincing whilst they thought of dining.  Sheridan and Brummell delighted in mystifying her.  Byron complained that she was always talking of himself or herself[1], and concludes his account of a dinner-party by the remark:—­“But we got up too soon after the women; and Mrs. Corinne always lingers so long after dinner, that we wish her—­in the drawing-room.”  In another place he says:  “I saw Curran presented to Madame de Stael at Mackintosh’s; it was the grand confluence between the Rhone and the Saone, and they were both so d—­d ugly that I could not help wondering how the best intellects of France and England could have taken up respectively such residences.”  He afterwards qualifies this opinion:  “Her figure was not bad; her legs tolerable; her arms good:  altogether I can conceive her having been a desirable woman, allowing a little imagination for her soul, and so forth.  She would have made a great man.”

[Footnote 1:  Johnson told Boswell:  “You have only two topics, yourself and myself, and I am heartily sick of both.”]

This is just what Mrs. Piozzi never would have made.  Her mind, despite her masculine acquirements, was thoroughly feminine:  she had more tact than genius, more sensibility and quickness of perception than depth, comprehensiveness, or continuity of thought.  But her very discursiveness prevented her from becoming wearisome:  her varied knowledge supplied an inexhaustible store of topics and illustrations; her lively fancy