with cheers, and a circulating and sympathetic thrill will have rushed through the breast, and brought tears into the eyes of every one of your audience.

66

Give

If you were to say to an Englishman, me up your property, and give me up your liberty, and give me up your life, for the sake of England;" he would say, "Stop a little! what is England to me without my property, and my liberty, and my life?-my liberty, my property, and my life, are England to me all the world over."-Not so the Frenchman: talk to him of France; tell him that what you wish is for the interest and the glory of France, and he will let you erect scaffolds, and send his children to the guillotine and the battle-he will stop in the highest fever of freedom to bow to the most terrible dictatorship, and stick the red cap of democratism on the triumvirate tyranny of Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just. There is nothing you may not do with him under the charm of those irresistible words "Français, soyez Français !"

"The Englishman," as an author lately observed, "is proud of his nation because it belongs to himself;* the Frenchman is proud of himself because he belongs to his nation." This is true because a Frenchman's vanity

* England and the English.

induces him to prefer to himself the association which connects him with something greater than himself;-so, one reason why merit is more honoured in France than in England is, because the Frenchman at once connects his own fame with the fame of the sage or the warrior of his land, and loves and cherishes his countryman's reputation as a part of himself. "It was not

from a massive bar of iron, but from a small and tiny needle," as my Lord Bacon observes, "that we discovered the great mystery of nature and thus is it often by marking carefully those passions, which, looked at superficially, appear the smallest and the meanestthat we trace the causes of a nation's principal distinctions.

Let me also observe that things which appear the most incomprehensible, as we regard the institutions of a country, explain themselves frequently as we inform ourselves of the character of its people. A fierce republican asked a friend of mine the other day, to procure him the order of St. Anne from the Emperor of Russia. How do you account for, and how do you reconcile, that passion for equality, and that avidity for distinction, which burn at the same moment in a French bosom? Do you believe in the one, and doubt the other? They both in reality

exist-and they both exist-because the Frenchman is vain. France is republican, because France is, as Madame de Staël said, toute marquise a general desire for honours forbids a privilege to exist.

I have said that one reason why merit is more honoured in France than in England is, because the Frenchman at once associates himself with the greatest glory to which he can possibly claim affinity. For this reason, a government, strong and lucky, finds little difficulty in doing what it pleases. Instead of being afraid or jealous of its power, the French will be vain of it. The greater and more terrible such a government is, the greater and more terrible they will think themselves to be." I was stopping one night at a country inn," says an English traveller, whose journey took place about sixty years ago; "the court-yard was filled with the equipage, and the kitchen with the retinue, of a 'grand seigneur,' who was proceeding to his government in the south. My room was not very distant from the French nobleman's, and just as I was going to bed, I heard a tremendous noise in the passage, and the mingled ejaculations of threatening and supplication. What is the cause of this? thought I—with the nervousness of a traveller in a strange country-and wrapping a cloak

around me, I sallied forth into the dimlylit corridor, which ran from one end of the 'auberge' to the other. I was not long in a state of suspense : before me in a brocaded dressing-gown, was my illustrious neighbour for the night, laying a light cane-which actually clung to the form it curled round-on the back of his unfortunate valet. At my appearance the grand seigneur' ended his operations with one tremendous kick, and retired into his apartment.

"I could not refrain from going up to the miserable wretch who stood whining and shivering before me. Be comforted,' said I, 'my good fellow, your master has used you most shamefully, and I have no doubt the law will give you redress for his brutality.' 'My master, sir,' said the valet, immediately drawing himself up with dignity, 'is far too great a man for the law to reach ; and indeed for the matter of that, all the masters whom I have ever served, could get a lettre-de-cachet for the asking.' D—n the fellow, if he was not proud of his master's being able to beat him with impunity!" Just so he was much more alive to the vanity of having for a master a gentleman, who could beat his servants with impunity, than he was to the disgrace of being one of the servants beaten.

6

A successful prince then may always, in France, be a despotic one; but woe to the unfortunate prince who would imitate his example. In England there is usually a sympathy with the sinking cause-and after it has reached a certain mark, there is almost sure to be an ebb in our displeasure. In France it is quite the reverse-the grand homme-if you succeed: --you are a 'scélérat,' a 'coquin,' a 'parjure,' every thing that is atrocious, if you are guilty of misfortune. It is not that the French are in private an ill-natured or an ungrateful people, but their vanity cannot endure being on the losing side, and they take all pains to convince themselves that they are called upon to quit it. The reign and career of Bonaparte was perhaps the strongest exemplification ever known of the force of a national passion. The French gazed upon his bridges, his harbours, his canals, his triumphal arches, his temples, and every individual said, 'What a great person I am, to have an emperor who has done all this!' Harassed, decimated, oppressed as the nation was,-faint and exhausted, it followed him on to the verge of his fortune, and left him at the first defeat. And now that the statue of their ancient idol is again put up, was it justice that put it up? Ask those who are still

VOL. I.

G