chichte_ (i. 420-424), &c.]

This is the Prose Truth of those fifty or eight-and-forty hours in
Strasburg, which were so mythic and romantic at that time. Shall we now
apply to the Royal Doggerel again, where we left off, and see the other
side of the picture? Once settled in The Raven, within Strasburg's
walls, the Doggerel continues:--

"You fancy well that there was now something to exercise my curiosity;
and what desire I had to know the French Nation in France itself.

There I saw at length those French,
Of whom you have sung the glories;
A people despised by the English,
Whom their sad rationality fills with black bile;
Those French, whom our Germans
Reckon all to be destitute of sense;
Those French, whose History consists of Love-stories,
I mean the wandering kind of Love, not the constant;
Foolish this People, headlong, high-going,
Which sings beyond endurance;
Lofty in its good fortune, crawling in its bad;
Of an unpitying extent of babble,
To hide the vacancy of its ignorant mind.
Of the Trifling it is a tender lover;
The Trifling alone takes possession of its brain.
People flighty, indiscreet, imprudent,
Turning like the weathercock to every wind.
Of the ages of the Caesars those of the Louises are the shadow;
Paris is the ghost, of Rome, take it how you will.
No, of those vile French you are not one:
You think; they do not think at all.

La je vis enfin ces Francais
Dont vous avez chante la gloire;
Peuple meprise' des Anglais,
Que leur triste raison remplit de bile noire;
Ces Francais, que nos Allemands
Pensent tous prives de bon sens;
Ces Francais, do nt l'amour pourrait dicter l'histoire,
Je dis l'amour volage, et non l'amour constant;
Ce peuple fou, brusque et galant,
Chansonnier insupportable,
Superbe en sa fortune, en son malheur rampant,
D'un bavardage impitoyable,
Pour cacher le creux d'un esprit ignorant,
Tendre amant de la bagatelle,
Elle entre seule en sa cervelle;
Leger, indiscret, imprudent,
Comme ume girouette il revire a tout vent.
Des siecles des Cesars ceux des Louis sont l'ombre;
Rome efface Paris en tout sens, en tout point.
Non, des vils Francais vous n'etes pas du nombre;
Vous pensez, ils ne pensent point.

"Pardon, dear Voltaire, this definition of the French; at