and to take the trouble of inquiring into their working, however much his strong home feelings may kick at the idea of borrowing any part of them for his own use. But a Frenchman seems generally to start with the feeling of national superiority so strongly asserting itself, that all that is foreign (I speak of course of social, not of political institutions) sinks into an insignificance which is almost beneath notice, at any rate not worthy of study. Consequently he travels but little; though his language is the cosmopolitan language of Europe, there is nothing of the cosmopolite in him. If a man of cultivated taste, he enjoys in a sentimental way the works of nature and art (art rather than nature) which he has, to use his own expressive word, effleuré, and carries away perhaps some ideas of grace and elegance, enough to fill a page of measured rhapsodical prose, which the most scrupulous academician can find no fault with. On the other hand, nothing, I know, can look less like enjoyment than the common sight of a Britisher hurrying about Murray in hand and seeing what he is told to see. But this systematic sight-seeing, though it may be less enjoyable at the time, gives him a more accurate view of things in the long-run, and lays up for him a store of enjoyment in retrospect. Those who have met Frenchmen out of their own country will all, more or less, bear me out in these reflections. They may be fairly illustrated by comparing a series of "Letters from Italy" from the pen of M. Henri Taine, which appeared in the "Revue des deux Mondes" at the beginning of the present year, with any English book on the same subject, say Mr. Burgon's "Letters from Rome." They cannot be better summed up than in the speech of a French officer in the garrison at Rome, reported by Mr. Story:-"We have been here now five years, and these rascally Italians can't talk French yet."

When

How are these difficulties to be overcome? Commercial treaties may do a great deal. Not merely by creating an identity of material interests-this could only smother, not extinguish old enmities-but by the action and reaction of French taste and English solidity. Abolition of passports, and increased ease of communication may do much. from London to Paris is but an 11 hours' journey, which may be taken at an hour's notice, the two peoples cannot but be brought into more intimate relations. But here the advantages are chiefly on the other side. As compared with the Alps and the Pyrenees, with Vichy and Biarritz, we have little to attract those who travel for pleasure. Hence far more Englishmen pass through France, than Frenchmen

come to England. It might seem as if this were an advantage rather for the Englishman, but I think not. The ordinary traveller passes too quickly to see much of the people, and the specimens that he does see are not always such as to leave with him the best impressions; but still he, quickly as he passes, leaves some trace which may show his neighbours that every Englishman is not necessarily a "milord" or a snob-that you have not exhausted his whole nature when you define him as a biped with a beef-like complexion and a long purse. In the same way the French visitor of London may correct the English prejudice which sets up the denizen of Leicester Square as a type of French society.

But there is a third influence to which I am inclined to attribute the greatest power of all. What we want is to secure for the one a fair knowledge and appreciation of the mind and soul of the other, and to this end surely the literatures of the two countries can exert the widest influence, an influence indeed whose range will extend over the whole of educated society. The books which a people recognises as classic, or rewards with the popularity of the hour, are sure to reflect the general type and the temporary play of the features of the national character. It may be doubted whether Shakespeare would have been a classic in France, any more than Racine could have been one in England. Here the advantage is on our side. We are perhaps, as a nation, the greater readers, at any rate of solid literature, and the educated Englishman can generally read a French work in the original, and so need not wait till some publisher thinks it will pay to give to the world a translation. And this is no slight advantage, when our object is to get to the kernel of the French character, for it is seldom that a translator can break the shell in which it is enclosed without leaving the mark of his handy-work.

Now no one, I imagine, can fail to be struck with the alteration which the last few years have produced in this respect. The names, and in many cases, the works of contemporary writers are familiar to us, and what is more, we are beginning to care for their good opinion. True we have not yet begun to appreciate their classic authors, save, perhaps, Voltaire's histories, and Molière's broader comedies, but that will come in time. Meanwhile the writings of a Guizot, a Lamartine, a Hugo, or a de Tocqueville leave their impress upon British thought. Setting aside the glimpses which lighter literature gives us of the social habits and thoughts of the nation, there are two results to be expected.

from the wider reading: an increased respect for the French language, and a higher opinion of the French mind. Our habitual tendency is to think of French as a frothy, unsubstantial language, good enough for the unmeaning expressions of French compliment and courtesy, or at best for the questionable uses of diplomacy, but entirely unfit for the clothing of any substantial truths or high ideas. And in the same way we are fond of picturing to ourselves the Frenchman as one whose mind is sufficiently inventive to produce elegant knick-knacks, sufficiently imaginative to give birth to an improbable romance of more than questionable morality, but not able to grasp any wide principle, or form any long induction. Such ideas cannot but vanish from the mind of one who reads such historians as Guizot, Michelet, Thierry, or Mérimée, such critics as Sainte-Beuve, Villemain, or Prévost-Paradol; such men of science as Arago, Cousin, Comte. Nor can he fail to see the wide capacities of a language which for clearness and cleanness of expression surpasses all others. And this appreciation of language is a matter of no small importance, for language being only the reflex of ideas, where the ideas are mean, the speech must be mean too, and conversely, clearness of language implies also habits of clear thought. And herein, I think, lies the strength of the French mind. It may be at times illogical, but ideas are grasped, and seen with a sharply-defined distinctness which is even matter for envy.

There is one department of this literature which is of peculiar value: that, I mean, which enables us to see what impression our neighbours receive from our national character and literature; or to compare the impressions produced by the same scenes or the same works upon the two nations. Such works as M. Taine's Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise, or M. Esquiros' L'Angleterre et la vie Anglaise, may, if impartially read, put us in a point outside our own narrow circle, and enable us in some measure to 66 see ourselves as others see us. But the latter class has a still higher value. In the field of general criticism we all start fair; we cannot so comfortably resolve all differences by the reflexion that our critic knows nothing about his subject, which so often serves as an extinguisher to foreign judgments of English things.

* I am obliged to translate a French word (netteté) to express my meaning.

At the same time, however, that modern French literature is more widely read in England than before, there are some branches of it which are yet but little known.

may specially mention French criticism and French poetry. And yet the former is perhaps the best of the present time, and the latter is by no means to be despised. How many Englishmen have read-how many even know the names of Casimir Delavigne, or Alfred de Musset? How many of the admirers of "Notre Dame de Paris" and "Les Misérables" know anything of the "Poésies" and the "Legende des Siècles" of the same author?

There is another class of works, whose circulation we naturally expect to be confined to their own country, though an acquaintance with them will do more than anything else to deepen our knowledge of the nation from which they issue. I allude to those whose interest is only local and temporary-the works of the journalist and pamphleteer. Among the foremost of these in France, during the present century, stands the writer whose name heads the present article. He has been called by some the Cobbett of France; but he is a Cobbett without his coarseness; his attacks are sharper and more stinging, because his weapons are finer, his steel more carefully tempered. Some account of his life and writings may not be without interest to the readers of the Eagle.

Paul Louis Courier was born at Paris on the 4th of January, 1772. His father was a wealthy and cultivated member of the middle class, possessing an estate in Touraine, to which he was obliged to retire not long after the birth of his son. Admitted apparently by his position and education into the highest circles, he was accused of having seduced the wife of one of the leaders of the nobility. The Grand Seigneur was deeply in his debt and refused to pay what he owed, so that we may receive the story with some suspicion. But whether it was true or not, he was set upon by the followers of the duke of O— nearly assassinated, and ultimately compelled by the noise which the affair made to leave Paris. It is not hard to see from what source Courier first drew the intense hatred for the nobility which is so plainly outspoken in his works. Brought up in Touraine under his father's eye, he further imbibed from him that fondness for ancient authors, especially the Greek, which was the sole passion of his life. At fifteen we find him studying mathematics at Paris, but still devoting all his leisure time to Greek.

and

From Paris he went, in 1791, to the artillery school at Chalons, and gained his first experience of military duty by mounting guard at the gate of the town during the panic produced by the Prussian invasion of 1792. After Dumouriez' successes he was enabled to complete his studies. He received his commission as lieutenant in the artillery in June, 1793, and joined the garrison at Thionville. It is from this place that the first three of the series of letters, which are our chief material for his life, are dated. They are the only ones of this early date, and are most interesting for the traits of character that they disclose. How much for instance we read in the following passage; in which he is speaking of an ill-tempered chum:

"Je me suis fait une étude et un mérite de supporter en lui une humeur fort inégale qui, avant moi, a lassé tous ses autres camarades. J'ai fait presque comme Socrate, qui avait pris une femme acariâtre pour s'exercer à la patience; pratique assurément fort salutaire, et dont j'avais moins besoin que bien des gens ne le croient, moins que je ne l'ai cru moi-même. Quoi qu'il en soit, je puis certifier à tout le monde que mon susdit compagnon a, dans un degré eminent toutes les qualités requises pour faire de grands progrès dans cette vertu à ceux qui vivront avec lui."

I must quote one other passage which contains the key to the whole of his military life. His father had been expressing an opinion that the time which he gave to the dead languages was badly employed, considering the profession for which he was destined. He replies:

"Quand je n'aurais eu en cela d'autre but que ma propre satisfaction, c'est une chose que je fais entrer pour beaucoup dans mes calculs; et je ne regarde comme perdu, dans ma vie, que le temps où je n'en puis jouir agréablement sans jamais me repentir du passé, ni craindre pour l'avenir."

The Greek studies to which he gave so much time were not superficial. He says with regard to them:-"I like above all to read over again the books that I have already been through numbers of times, and by that means acquire a learning which, if less wide in range, is at any rate more solid." For this reason he declines the study of history, which requires too much reading; a dislike which was only strengthened by his subsequent experiences.

Never were better prospects spread before a soldier than lay open to a young officer joining the army of the Rhine in 1793, provided he showed some talent and zeal for the