se who
are never subject to that unhappy irregularity of temper and spirit, so
visible to all foreigners in the character of the English people, and
which never fails to secure esteem, and to interest the affections,
while superior worth, less happily gifted for the common purposes and
intercourse of life, may be regarded with no warmer feeling than that of
distant respect; the _loyaute_ and frankness once so closely associated
with the history and character of the French people; the manliness which
taught them at once to admit and to repair the wrongs which their
impetuosity of spirit, or their harshness of feeling, might have
occasioned, and the gallantry with which they were wont to defend with
their sword what their honour bound them to maintain; and above all,
that delightful and touching _abandon_ of feeling, which seemed the
result of genuine simplicity, and which appeared to know no reserve,
only because it knew no guilt; all these beautiful and interesting
traits, which adorned the character of former and of later days, are
still preserved in the comedies of their greater writers; the purity of
former character seems to animate the pages which they write, and the
spirit of earlier times seems yet to retain its ascendancy, when they
wish to pourtray the manners of the present day.

In the degradation of the present period, they delight to recall the
splendour and the renown of the period that is past; and, by preserving
in their works the character which adorned the French people before the
profligacy and the insidious policy of a corrupt court disarmed the
nation of its virtue, to reconcile it to slavery, they attempt to awaken
a nobler spirit, and lay the foundation of future grandeur. Whatever has
delighted us in reading the history of the earlier periods of the French
monarchy, when the elevation of chivalrous feeling, and the
disinterestedness of simple manners, distinguished the French people,
and when the character of the great Henry displayed, in a more
conspicuous station, the virtues which ennobled the duties of private
life, is yet to be found in their best comedies. Among the many
thousands who crowd to their numerous theatres, there are many, one
would hope, who can feel the sad contrast which the last century of
French history, "fertile only in crime," presents to the honour of
former times, and in whom may be reviving that lofty and generous spirit
which may yet redeem the character they have lost