Current:

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

Page 385
Page 1
1 of 78

On this page

  • 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.
  • Text (4)
  • Transcript

    • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

      Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

      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-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2634/page/1/