t sees everything
distorted, or a fecundity of imagination that can conjure up the ills
he seeks for. He finds us rude, inhospitable, and illiterate; our
habits are vulgar, our tastes depraved; our House of Commons is a
riotous mob of under-bred debaters; our army an aristocratic _lounge_,
where merit has no chance against money; and our literature--God
wot!--a plagiarism from the French. The Englishman is nearly as
complimentary. The coarseness of French habits is to him a theme of
eternal reprobation; the insolence of the men, the indelicacy of the
women, the immorality of all, overwhelm him with shame and disgust:
the Chamber of Deputies he despises, as a contemptible parody on a
representative body, and a speech from the tribune a most absurd
substitute for the freedom of unpremeditated eloquence: the army he
discovers to be officered by men, to whom the new police are
accomplished gentlemen; and, in fact, he sums up by thinking that if
we had no other competitors in the race of civilisation than the
French, our supremacy on land, is to the full as safe, as our
sovereignty over the ocean. Here lie two countries, separated by a
slip of sea not much broader than an American river, who have gone on
for ages repeating these and similar puerilities, without the most
remote prospect of mutual explanation and mutual good-will.

"I hate prejudice, I hate the French," said poor Charles Matthews, in
one of his inimitable representations, and really the expression was
no bad summary of an Englishman's faith. On the other hand, to hate
and detest the English is the _sine qua non_ of French nationality,
and to concede to them any rank in literature, morals, or military
greatness, is to derogate from the claims of his own country. Now the
question is, are the reproaches on either side absolutely just? They
are not. Secondly, if they be unfair, how comes it that two people
pre-eminently gifted with intelligence and information, should not
have come to a better understanding, and that many a long year ago?
Simply from this plain fact, that the opinions of the press have
weighed against those of individuals, and that the published satires
on both sides have had a greater currency and a greater credit than
the calm judgment of the few. The leading journals in Paris and in
London have pelted each other mercilessly for many a year. One might
forgive this, were the attacks suggested by such topics as stimulate
and strengthen national f