Italian; but it is celebrated for men--men
emphatically speaking: Columbus was an Italian, Alexander Farnese was an
Italian, so was the mightiest of the mighty, Napoleon Bonaparte;--but the
German language, German literature, and the Germans! The writer has
already stated his opinion with respect to German; he does not speak from
ignorance or prejudice; he has heard German spoken, and many other
languages. German literature! he does not speak from ignorance; he has
read that and many a literature, and he repeats . . . however, he
acknowledges that there is one fine poem in the German language, that
poem is the "Oberon"; a poem, by-the-bye, ignored by the Germans--a
speaking fact--and of course by the Anglo-Germanists. The Germans! he
has been amongst them, and amongst many other nations, and confesses that
his opinion of the Germans, as men, is a very low one. Germany, it is
true, has produced one very great man, the monk who fought the pope, and
nearly knocked him down; but this man his countrymen--a telling
fact--affect to despise, and of course the Anglo-Germanists: the father
of Anglo-Germanism was very fond of inveighing against Luther.

The madness, or rather foolery, of the English for foreign customs,
dresses, and languages, is not an affair of to-day or yesterday--it is of
very ancient date, and was very properly exposed nearly three centuries
ago by one Andrew Borde, who, under the picture of a "Naked man with a
pair of shears in one hand, and a roll of cloth in the other," {313}
inserted the following lines along with others:--

"I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here,
Musing in my mind what garment I shall weare;
For now I will weare this, and now I will weare that,
Now I will weare, I cannot tell what.
All new fashions be pleasant to mee,
I will have them, whether I thrive or thee;
What do I care if all the world me fail?
I will have a garment reach to my taile;
Then am I a minion, for I weare the new guise.
The next yeare after I hope to be wise,
Not only in wearing my gorgeous array,
For I will go to learning a whole summer's day;
I will learn Latine, Hebrew, Greek, and French,
And I will learn Dutch, sitting on my bench.
I had no peere if to myself I were true,
Because I am not so, divers times do I rue.
Yet I lacke nothing, I have all things at will
If I were wise and would hold myself still,
And meddle with no matters but to me per