which they are unquestionably our superiors. Unlike our authors, who, on
those subjects which address the heart and reason jointly, adopt the
style of a treatise on the differential calculus; and when pure science
is their topic, lead us to suppose (if it were not for their disgusting
pomposity) they had chosen for their model the florid confusion of a
tenth-rate novel;--the French write on scientific subjects with
simplicity and precision, and on moral, aesthetic, and theoretical
questions with spirit, earnestness, and sensibility. Having said so
much, we must however add, that a liberal and ingenious acknowledgment
of error is not among the shining qualities of our neighbours. When a
question is at issue in which they imagine the literary reputation of
their country to be at stake, it is the dexterity of the advocate,
rather than the candour of the judge, that we must look for in their
dissertations. He who has argued on the guilt of Mary with a Scotchman,
or the authenticity of the three witnesses with a newly made archdeacon,
and with a squire smarting under an increasing poor-rate or the
corn-laws, may form a just conception of the task he will undertake in
endeavouring to persuade a French critic that his countrymen are in the
wrong. The patient, if he does not, as it has sometimes happened in the
cases to which we have referred, become "pugil et medicum urget," is
sure, as in those instances, to triumph over all the proofs which reason
can suggest, or that the hellebore of nine Anticyras could furnish him
with capacity to understand. Of this the work of M. Neufchateau is a
striking proof. Truth is on one side, Le Sage's claim to originality on
the other; and he supports the latter: we do not say that he is willing,
rather than abandon his client, to assert a falsehood; but we are sure
that, in order to defend him, he is ready to believe absurdities.

The degree of moral guilt annexed to such conduct as that which we
attribute to Le Sage, is an invidious topic, not necessarily connected
with our subject, and upon which we enter with regret.

Lessing accused Wieland of having destroyed a palace, that he might
build a cottage with its materials. However highly we may think of the
original, we can hardly suppose such an expression applicable to _Gil
Blas_. Of the name of the author whose toil Le Sage thus appropriated,
charity obliges us to suppose that he was ignorant; but we should not
forget that the case of Le S