rest of our compatriots assembled lose their's, "Madame must allow, that there is a striking resemblance in their persons, and the sublimity of their acting?" "Pour ça, j'en convien," replied this 'critique de l'Ecole des Femmes." "Mais cependant Lise ton n'a pas la Nature! l'âme! le grandeur de Talma!" “And will you then allow us no actors of me rit ?" asked Vincent. "Mais oui !-dans le genre comique, par example, votre buffo Kean met dix fois plus d'esprit et de drollerie dans ses rôles que La Porte." وو “The impartial and profound judgment of Madame admits of no further discussion on this point,' said I. "What does she think of the present state of our dramatic literature ?” "Why," replied Madame, "you have many great poets, but when they write for the stage they lose themselves entirely; your Valter Scote's play of Robe Roi is very inferior to his novel of the same name." "It is a great pity," said I, " that Byron did not turn his Childe Harold into a tragedy—it has so much energy-action-variety !" 66 Very true," said Madame, with a sigh; "but the tragedy is, after all, only suited to our nationwe alone carry it to perfection.' "Yet," said I, Goldoni wrote a few fine tragedies." "Eh bien!" said Madame, 66 one rose does not constitute a garden!” And satisfied with this remark, la femme savante turned to a celebrated traveller to discuss with him the chance of discovering the North Pole There were one or two clever Englishmen present; Vincent and I joined them. "Have you met the Persian prince yet?" said Sir George Lynton to me; "he is a man of much talent, and great desire of knowledge. He intends to publish his observations on Paris, and I suppose we shall have an admirable supplement to Montesquieu's Lettres Persannes !" "I wish we had," said Vincent: "there are few better satires on a civilized country than the observations of visitors less polished; singularly enough, this with savage states is just the reverse: the European traveller, in describing the manners of the American barbarian, instead of conveying ridicule upon the visited, points the sarcasm on the visitor; and Tacitus could not have thought of a finer or nobler satire on the Roman luxuries than by his treatise on the German simplicity." "What," said Monsieur D'E- (an intelligent ci-devant émigre), "what political writer is generally esteemed as your best ?" "It is difficult to say," replied Vincent," since with so many parties we have many idols; but I think I might venture to name Bolingbroke as among the most popular. Perhaps, indeed, it would be difficult to select a name more frequently quoted and discussed than his; yet I will boldly aver that his political works are the least valuable part of his remains; and though they contain many lofty sentiments and many beautiful, yet scattered truths, they were written when legislation, most : debated, was least understood, and ought to be admired rather as excellent for the day than estimable in themselves. The life of Bolingbroke would convey a juster moral than all his writings and the author who gives us a full and impartial memoir of that extraordinary man, will have afforded both to the philosophical and political literature of England one of its greatest desideratums." "It seems to me," said Monsieur D'E"that your national literature is peculiarly deficient in biography am I right in my opinion?" "Indubitably!" said Vincent; " we have not a single work that can be considered a model in biography, (excepting, perhaps, Middleton's Life of Cicero.) The immediate reason, probably, is the very little appetite there is in England for works of that description; and this brings on a remark I have often made in distinguishing your philosophy from ours. It seems to me that you who excel so admirably in biography, memoirs, comedy, satirical observation on peculiar classes, and pointed aphorisms, are fonder of considering man in hist relation to society and the active commerce of the world, than in the more abstracted and metaphysical operations of the mind. Our writers, on the contrary, love to indulge rather in abstruse speculations on their species-to regard man in an abstract and isolated point of view, and to see him think alone in his chamber, beholding him act with the world." while you prefer multitude in the "It must be allowed," said Monsieur D'E-t, "that if this be true, our philosophy is the most useful, though yours may be the most profound." Vincent did not reply. "Yet," said Sir George Lynton, "there will be a disadvantage attending your writings of this description, which, by diminishing their general applicability, diminish their general utility. Works which treat upon man in his relation to society, can only be strictly applicable so long as that relation to society treated upon continues. For instance, the play which satirizes a particular class, however deep its reflections and accurate its knowledge |