VIEW OF THE ENGLISH CHARACTER. CHAPTER I. Apology for Freedom with a great Name-National Prejudices illustratedDistinctions between the Vanity of the French and English-The Root of our Notions is the Sentiment of Property-Anecdote of the French Patriot and the English one-The sense of Independence-Its Nature with us defined -Freedom not the Cause of Unsociability-Effects of Commerce upon the Disposition to Gaiety-Story of the Dutchman and the English Merchant. I AM about, in this portion of my work, to treat of the character of my countrymen: for when a diplomatist like your Excellency is amongst them, they may as well be put upon their guard. I shall endeavour to tell my countrymen the causes that have stamped with certain impressions the National Character, in the belief that the knowledge of self is a better precaution against deceit, than even the suspicion of others. I inscribe this portion of my work to your Excellency on the same principle as that on which the Scythian brought to Darius a mouse, a bird, a fish, and a bundle of arrows:-they were the symbols of his nation, and given as instructions to its foe. I make up also my bundle of national symbols, and I offer them to the representative of that great people with whom for eight centuries we have been making great wars, occasioned by small mistakes. Perhaps if the symbols had been rightly construed a little earlier, even a mouse and a fish might have taught us better. A quarrel is, nine times out of ten, merely the fermentation of a misunderstanding. I have another reason for inscribing these preliminary chapters to Prince Talleyrand: this is not the first time he has been I NATIONAL PREJUDICES. amongst us-great changes have been over the world during the wide interval between his first and his present visit to England. Those changes which have wrought such convulsions in states, have begun by revolutions in the character of nations; -every change in a constitution is occasioned by some change in the people. The English of the present day are not the English of twenty years ago. To whom can I dedicate my observations on the causes that influence character so fittingly as to the man who can read character at a glance. The consciousness that I set over my testimony so penetrating a judge must make me doubly scrupulous as to its accuracy: and my presumption in appealing to such an arbiter, is an evidence, indeed, of temerity; but it is also a proof of my honesty, and a guarantee for my caution. I remember to have read in an ancient writer,* of a certain district in Africa remarkable for a fearful phenomenon. "In that climate," says our authority, "the air seemed filled with gigantic figures of strange and uncouth monsters fighting (or in pursuit of) each other. These apparitions were necessarily a little alarming to foreigners, but the natives looked upon them with the utmost indifference Is not this story an emblem of national prejudices? The shadowy monsters that appal the stranger seem ordinary enough to us; we have no notion of a different atmosphere, and that which is a marvel to others is but a commonplace to yourselves. Yet if the native is unobservant, your Excellency will allow that the traveller is credulous; and if sometimes the monsters are unremarked by the one, sometimes also they are invented by the other. Your Excellency remembers the story of the French Jesuit, who was astonished to find priestcraft in China; the man who practised it in the name of the Virgin thought it a monstrous piece of impudence to practise it in the name of Fo! In the same spirit of travel you read of an Englishwoman complaining of rudeness in America, and a German prince affecting a republican horror at an aristocracy in England. His Excellency, Prince Talleyrand, knows better than the whole corps of diplomatists how small a difference there is really between man and man—the stature and limbs vary little + Diodorus Siculus. ANECDOTE OF THE CALLATIANS. 3 in proportions-it is the costume that makes all the distinction. Travellers do not sufficiently analyse their surprise at the novelties they see, and they often proclaim that to be a difference in the several characters of nations, which is but a difference in their manners. One of the oldest illustrations of national prejudice is to be found in Herodotus. The Greeks in the habit of burning their parents were wonderfully indignant at the barbarity of the Callatii, who were accustomed to eat them. The Persian king summons the Callatii before him in the presence the Greeks :-"You eat your fathers and mothers excellent practice-pray, for what sum will you burn them ?" The Callatii were exceedingly disgusted at the question. Burn their parents! They uttered yells of horror at so inhuman a suggestion! The Callatian and the Greek experienced filial affection in an equal degree, but the man who made a dinner of his father would have considered it the height of atrocity to have made a bonfire of him. of a most The passions are universally the same-the expression of them as universally varying. Your Excellency will allow that the French and the English are both eminently vain of country -so far they are alike—yet if there be any difference between the two nations more strong than another, it is the manner in which that vanity is shown. The vanity of the Frenchman consists (as I have somewhere read) in belonging to so great a country: but the vanity of the Englishman exults in the thought that so great a country belongs to himself. The root of all our notions, as of all our laws, is to be found in the sentiment of property. It is my wife whom you shall not insult; it is my house that you shall not enter; it is my country that you shall not traduce; and by a species of ultra-mundane appropriation, it is my God whom you shall not blaspheme! We may observe the different form of the national vanity in the inhabitant of either country, by comparing the eulogia which the Frenchman lavishes on France, with the sarcastic despondency with which the Englishman touches upon England. A few months ago I paid a visit to Paris: I fell in with a French marquis of the Bourbonite politics: he spoke to me of the present state of Paris with tears in his eyes. I thought it best to sympathize and agree with him: my complaisance was displeasing-he wiped his eyes with the air of a man beginning to 4 THE ENGLISH PATRIOT take offence. "Nevertheless, sir," quoth he, "our public buildings are superb!" I allowed the fact. "We have made great advances in civilization." There was no disputing the proposition. "Our writers are the greatest in the world." I was silent. "Enfin-what a devil of a climate yours is, in comparison to ours!" I returned to England, in company with a Frenchman, who had visited us twenty years since, and who was delighted with the improvement he witnessed in London; I introduced him to one of our patriots,—“ What a superb street is Regent-street," cried the Frenchman. "Pooh, sir, mere lath and plaster!" replied the patriot. "Mere twaddlers, I assure you-nothing great now-adays." "Well, I am surprised; but, at least, I shall see your authors and men of science." "Really, sir," answered the patriot, very gravely, "I don't remember that we have any." The polished Frenchman was at a loss for a moment, but recovering himself "Ah !" said he, taking a pinch of snuff, "but you're a very great nation—very!" "That is quite true," said the Englishman, drawing himself up. The Englishman then is vain of his country! Wherefore? because of the public buildings? he never enters them.-The laws? he abuses them eternally. The public men? they are quacks. The writers? he knows nothing about them. He is vain of his country for an excellent reason-IT PRODUCED HIM. In his own mind the Englishman is the pivot of all thingsthe centre of the solar system. Like Virtue herself, he "Stands as the sun, And all that rolls around him Drinks light, and life, and glory, from his aspect." It is an old maxim enough among us that we possess the sturdy sense of independence; we value ourselves on it ;--yet AND THE ENGLISH ONE. 5 the sense of independence is often but the want of sympathy with others. There was a certain merchant sojourning at an inn, whom the boots by mistake called betimes in the morning. "Sir," quoth the boots, "the day's breaking." The merchant turned round with a grim look-"Let it break," growled he, "it owes me nothing!" This anecdote is rather characteristic: it shows the connexion between selfishness and independence. The trait in our character of which I speak, has been often remarked; none, however, have, to my mind, very clearly accounted for it. Your Excellency knows, to be sure, that all the Frenchmen who ever wrote a syllable about us have declared it the result of our haughty consciousness of liberty. But we are better aware now-a-days than formerly what the real effects of liberty are. The feeling I describe is entirely selfish; the feelings produced by the consciousness of liberty rather run into the wildest extremes of universal philanthropy. Union and fraternity are the favourite cant words of popular power; and unsociability may be the accompaniment, but is certainly not the characteristic, of freedom. A Frenchman, indeed, has long enjoyed the same security of property, and the same consciousness of liberty, which are the boast of the Englishman; but this advantage has rather tended to widen than concentrate the circle of his affections. In becoming a citizen he has not ceased to mingle with his kind; perhaps, he thinks that to be at once free and unsocial would be a union less characteristic of a civilized, than a savage, condition. But your Excellency has observed, that all amongst us, save those of the highest ranks, live very much alone. Our crowded parties are not society; we assemble all our acquaintance for the pleasure of saying nothing to them. "Les Anglais," says one of your countrymen, "les Anglais ont une infinité de ces petites usages de convention,―pour se dispenser de parler." Our main element is home; and if you believe our sentimentalists, we consider it a wonderful virtue to be unhappy and disagreeable every where else. Thus (the consequence is notable) we acquire that habit of attaching an undue importance to our own circle, and viewing with indifference all the sphere beyond, which proverbially distinguishes the recluse, or the member of a confined coterie. Your Excellency has |