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TO KING GEORGE III.

239

THE LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY.

Whence does this love of our country, this universal passion, proceed? Why does the eye ever dwell with fondness upon the scenes of infant life? Why do we breathe with greater joy the breath of our youth? Why are not other soils as grateful, and other heavens as gay? Why does the soul of man ever cling to that earth where it first knew pleasure and pain, and, under the rough discipline of the passions, was roused to the dignity of moral life? 2 Is it only that our country contains our kindred and our friends? And is it nothing but a name for our social affections? It cannot be this; the most friendless of human beings has a country which he admires and extols, and which he would, in the same circumstances, prefer to all others under heaven. Tempt him with the fairest face of nature, place him by living waters under shadowy trees of Lebanon, open to his view all the gorgeous allurements of the climates of the sun,-he will love the rocks and deserts of his childhood better than all these,1 and thou canst not bribe his soul to forget the land of his nativity; he will sit down and weep by the waters of Babylon when he remembers 6 thee, O Sion!

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SYDNEY SMITH.

TO KING GEORGE III.

You ascended the throne with a declared, and, I

1 Of infant life, de notre enfance-2 is it only that, cela provientil uniquement de ce que-3 it cannot be this, il ne peut en être ainsi -4"all that"-5 future-6 future.

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doubt not, a sincere resolution1 of giving universal satisfaction to your subjects. You found them pleased with the novelty of a young prince whose countenance promised even more than his words, and loyal to you not only from 3 principle, but passion. It was not a cold profession of allegiance to the first magistrate, but a partial, animated attachment to a favourite prince, the native of their country. They did not wait to examine your conduct, not to be determined by experience, but gave you a generous credit for the future blessings of your reign, and paid you in advance the dearest tribute of their affections. Such, Sire, was once the disposition of a people who now surround your throne with reproaches and complaints. Do justice to yourself. Banish from your mind those unworthy opinions with which some interested persons have laboured to possess you. Distrust the men who tell you that the English are naturally light and inconstant -that they complain without a cause. Withdraw your confidence equally from all parties-from ministers, favourites, and relations; and let there be one moment in your life in which you have understanding. . . . . The people

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consulted your own of England are loyal to the House of Hanover, not from a vain preference of one family to another, but from a conviction 10 that the establishment of that family was necessary to the support of their civil and religious liberties. This, Sire, is 11 a principle of allegiance equally solid and rational;

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1 With, etc......resolution, en déclarant, sincèrement, je n'en doute pas, votre détermination- see note ", p. 47-3 from, par- to examine, jusqu'à ce qu'ils eussent examiné-5 gave, accordèrent-6 with which some......have laboured to possess you, que certaines......se sont évertuées à y faire entrer have, aurez-8 sing.—9 from, par suite de 10 from a conviction, parce qu'il est convaincu-l this...... is, c'est là.......

MODERN CLASSICS.

241

fit for Englishmen to adopt, and well worthy of your Majesty's encouragement. We cannot long be deluded by nominal distinctions. The name of Stuart, of 2

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itself, is only contemptible; armed with the sovereign authority, their principles are formidable. The prince who imitates their conduct should be warned by example; and, while he plumes himself upon the security of his title to the crown, should remember that, as it was acquired by one revolution, it may be lost by another.

JUNIUS.

MODERN CLASSICS.

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We cannot grant the monopoly of asthetic culture, so often claimed for the ancient classics. The very word "classics" itself is a sort of petrified expression of this fallacy. At the time when the title was bestowed, its appropriateness was beyond a doubt; but since the whole wealth of modern literature has been created, the title has ceased to be exclusively applicable, and ought no longer to be exclusively applied. Of our English authors we need not speak; but when we have such writers in French as Montaigne, Corneille, Bossuet, Molière, Pascal, Fénélon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Chateaubriand; in German, as Lessing, Wieland, Goëthe, Richter, and Schiller; in Italian, as Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, and Machiavelli-the term classics ought never to be applied, even to the immortal productions of Greek or Roman fame, without the word .

1 Fit for......to adopt, qu'il sied aux......d'adopter-2 of, en3 only, simplement-4 as it......it, de même qu'il......de même il. 5 Its, etc.......doubt, il était d'une justesse incontestable.

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"ancient" prefixed, by way of reservation in favour of the modern classics, which also well deserve the Without any disparagement of the ancient literature, however, we may maintain on the whole the superiority of the modern. In so far as 3 the modern may have caught inspiration from the ancient, all honour to the "classic" tongues that they have so greatly helped to make the modern literatures richer than their own. But the modern literature is not a mere copy of the ancients: it has a stamp1 and flavour of its own; 5 in the multiform and ever-changing phases of our social state, it has assumed a corresponding diversity and flexibility; and while the ancient literatures are now fixed and limited, the modern are ever progressive, becoming more abundant and more various with lapsing years. The former are as a lake, beautiful, but motionless and unchanging; the latter are as a river, which, swelled as it advances by tributaries on either hand, rolls on in ever more majestic volume. The spirit of the old has permeated our modern literatures, and can never perish, even were we to cease from its study. But neglect of the new cuts us off from the ever-flowing stream of contemporaneous thought and life, fed, too, as it is, from distant fountains. in the ancient hills..... We are of opinion, then, that, as regards whether their utility in the intercourse of life,—the wealth of the literature which they contain, -or their etymological relationship to the mothertongue, the modern languages, and especially French

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1 By way, en forme-2 without any disparagement of, sans le moins du monde rabaisser-3 in so far as, en tant que-4 stamp, cachet— 5 of its own, à elle-6 with lapsing years, avec le progrès du tempsછે. as, mesure que even, etc......study, quand même nous cesserions de l'étudier.

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MODERN CLASSICS.

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and German, ought, in all school studies, to precede the ancient languages of Greece and Rome. Their superior utility cannot be denied; the value of their literary and scientific contents, already greater, is in rapid and continual increase; and our language being of twofold origin-Latin and Teutonic-French serves admirably to illustrate the former part, and German the latter, while their unlikeness to each other1 prevents confusion in the learner's mind.

Again, much more thorough proficiency is both attainable and desirable in the modern than in the ancient languages; and yet we act as if the reverse were the fact.3 While the test of knowledge of the modern languages is much more frequent and severe than it can be in Greek or Latin, we have far too low an estimate of what constitutes a real acquaintance with them. It is not enough to be able to read ordinary books with tolerable facility, and a vague notion of their meaning, or to carry on fragmentary conversations about the weather, or the dishes at a dinner-table: fluency both in writing and speaking on subjects grave and variousa full appreciation of the genius and idiosyncrasy of the language, as well as accuracy in its details-an extensive knowledge of its literature-a feeling of being at home in it, if we may so say, are acquirements which, while they richly repay the labour that they cost, are unattainable, except by long years of study and continuous practice. The spasmodic efforts of a few months, under strong pressure, may do much; but it is by steady,

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1 Their unlikeness to each other, la différence entre les deux langues-2 again, d'un autre côté-3 as if, etc......fact, comme si c'était réellement l'inverse-4 with them, de ces langues-3 a feeling, etc......say, la satisfaction de s'y sentir, pour ainsi dire, chez soi - are, etc......by, ne peuvent s'obtenir qu'au prix de.

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