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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 1834, Edition 1 of 1, Page 385, Untitled Article

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  • Departments (1)
    • LETTER FROM AN ENGLISHMAN TO A FRENCHMAN, ON A RECENT APOLOGY IN ' THE JOURNAL DES DEBATS,' FOR THE FAULTS OF THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHARACTER.
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      Untitled Article

      At your suggestion I have thrown upon paper , though in a hasty and imperfect manner , some of the thoughts which occurred to me after perusing in the Journal des Debats , under the signature C—s , a criticism on-Mr . Bulwer ' s recent work , ' England and the English . '

      The well-known author of these articles is a person to whose writings on England some attention is due . He is one of the few Frenchmen who have a considerable acquaintance with English literature ; and he knows , for a foreigner , much of England . His knowledge , however , is of a kind which reminds me of a saying of one of my own countrymen . Somebody having ,

      in his presence , praised a third person very highly for the extensiveness of his knowledge , Yes , ' he replied , * he knows exactly enough of every subject to have the wrong opinion . ' Precisely of this kind is the knowledge which M . Chales possesses of England . He knows just enough to encourage him to entertain the most erroneous opinions . He knows just enough to believe

      that whatever he does not know , does not exist . He knows just enough to be able to read a work , by a writer of acknowledged merit , abounding with descriptions and exemplifications of many of the most striking features in the social state of Great Britain , and to close the book without having received a single

      impression ; never dreaming that he can have any thing to learn on the subject of England from an instructed and clever Englishman ; setting down ., in the quietest manner , as groundless and worthless , every thing in the book which goes beyond what he previously knew .

      It would be ungracious in an Englishman to be severe on a foreigner for not being severe upon us . I am glad when a Frenchman praises the English ; I am glad when , in a certain stage of his intellectual developement , he even overpraises us , as I am also when an Englishman , in the same stage of his progress ,

      overpraises the French . It is a natural reaction against the national prejudice and antipathy from which both countries have but recently emerged . It is also a very natural middle stage in the expansion of an individual intellect . A vulgar person sees only toe virtues , of his own nation , only the faults of other nations : but when , purselvea beginning to rise above the herd , we first

      perceive the * faults which are prevalent among our own countrymen , we are apt to pass into the c 6 ntrary extreme , and to exaggerate the degree of positive excellence which is implied by the absence of those particular faults in other nations . White we continue wgoted , all we tee in foreigners is , that they have not our vir-

      Untitled Article

      385

      Letter From An Englishman To A Frenchman, On A Recent Apology In ' The Journal Des Debats,' For The Faults Of The English National Character.

      LETTER FROM AN ENGLISHMAN TO A FRENCHMAN , ON A RECENT APOLOGY IN ' THE JOURNAL DES DEBATS , ' FOR THE FAULTS OF THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHARACTER .

      Untitled Article

      N * 90 . 2 X

  • Citation
    • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1834, page 385, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2634/page/1/