utionary poetry of France. It would be
unfair to judge of the French people by their _ca ira_ or the
_Carmagnole_, however true an expression such songs may be of the spirit
of the hour. The nation had lived before under "une monarchie absolue
temperee par des chansons;" the absolutism grew too galling; and then
the songs took the tone of fury which protracted oppression had bred. It
was not long before the tone was again changed. Napoleon was harassed on
his imperial throne by tokens of a secret understanding, unfriendly to
his interests: those tokens were songs ambiguously worded, or set to
airs which were used as signs; and treason, which he could not reach,
was perpetually spoken and acted within ear-shot and before his eyes.
When the royal family returned, the songs of De Beranger passed in like
manner from lip to lip, and the restored throne trembled to the echo. In
France, morals have for many years found their chief expression in
politics; and from the songs of Paris may the traveller learn the
political feelings of the time. Under representative governments, where
politics are the chief expression of morals, the songs of the people
cannot but be an instructive study to the observer; and scarcely less so
in countries where, politics being forbidden, the domestic and friendly
relations must be the topics through which the most general ideas and
feelings will flow out.

The rudest and the most advanced nations abound in songs. They are heard
under the plantain throughout Africa, as in the streets of Paris. The
boatmen on the Nile, and the children of Cairo on their way to school,
cheer the time with chants; as do the Germans in their vineyards, and in
the leisure hours of the university. The Negro sings of what he sees and
feels,--the storm coming over the woods, the smile of his wife, and the
coolness of the drink she gives him. The Frenchman sings the woes of the
state prisoner, and the shrewd self-cautionings of the citizen. The
songs of the Egyptian are amatory, and of the German varied as the
accomplishments of the nation,--but in their moral tone earnest and
pure. The more this mode of expression is looked into, the more
serviceable it will be found to the traveller's purposes of observation.

* * * * *

The subject of the Literature of nations, as a means of becoming
familiar with their moral ideas, is too vast to be enlarged on here. The
considerations connected with it are