deas. It was Charles the Fifth himself who said--that _a man who knows
four languages, is worth four men_. If that great political genius
judged thus, in regard to the conduct of affairs, how much more true is
it with respect to literature? Foreigners all study French; thus they
command a more extended horizon than you, who do not study foreign
languages. Why do you not more often take the trouble of learning
them?--You would thus preserve your own peculiar excellence, and
sometimes discover your deficiencies."

FOOTNOTE:

[22] Cesarotti, Verri, and Bettinelli, are three living authors who have
introduced thought into Italian prose; it must be confessed, that this
was not the case for a long time before.

Chapter ii.

"You will at least confess," replied the Count d'Erfeuil, "that there is
one part of literature in which we have nothing to learn of any
country.--Our drama is decidedly the first in Europe; for I cannot
believe that the English would presume to oppose their Shakespeare to
us."--"I beg your pardon," interrupted Mr Edgermond, "they have that
presumption."--And after this observation he was silent.--"In that case
I have nothing to say," continued the Count, with a smile which
expressed a kind of civil contempt: "Each one may think as he pleases,
but for my part I persist in believing that we may affirm without
presumption that we are the very first in dramatic art. As to the
Italians, if I may speak my mind freely, they do not appear even to
suspect that there is a dramatic art in the world.--With them the music
is every thing, and the play itself nothing. Should the music of the
second act of a piece be better than the first, they begin with the
second act. Or, should a similar preference attach to the first acts of
two different pieces, they will perform these two acts in the same
evening, introducing between, perhaps, an act of some comedy in prose
that contains irreproachable morality, but a moral teaching entirely
composed of aphorisms, that even our ancestors have already cast off to
the foreigner as too old to be of any service to them. Your poets are
entirely at the disposal of your famous musicians; one declares that he
cannot sing without there is in his air the word _felicita_; the tenor
must have _tomba_; while a third singer can only quaver upon the word
_catene_. The poor bard must make these different whims agree with
dramatic situation as well as he can. This is not all; there are