Six Weeks in Paris; Or, a Cure for the Gallomania Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1817 edition. Excerpt: ...to be found in foreign nations, and to exalt whatever belongs to their own. There was a time, indeed, when Paris was the fashionable resort of all foreigners, and the French language the current medium of colloquial intercourse throughout Europe, that by dint of the most persevering effrontery, and the most gross falsehood, they so far im posed upon Europe, as to gain credit for being the only civilized, polished, scientific nation upon earth; whilst all the others, of course, were barbarians in ioto, or demi-savages. But those days of illusion and credulity are now passed. The visit of so many emperors, kings, princes, nobles, and savans of other countries to England, has torn the bandage of French deception from their eyes. They are no more esteemed the first nation upon earth, than they are the invincible " "My lord," said the Major, "you have formed a very just estimate of their character. They were never satisfied with the admiration of the world;--they expected its adoration; for the present, they have lost the first, and never can gain the last. A Frenchman, in conversation upon literature or the arts, will drawl out affectedly, and with a yawn--" I am told that you begin to make some little progress in those things." They are ignorant, that England had a regular drama before France; that Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, and others, preceded their Comedies, Racine, Moliere, and Voltaire; the latter of whom, that fripier d'ecriis, pillaged English literature from end to end, and borrowed from it whatever is to be found great and grand in his own works, notwithstanding his base ingratitude to his benefactors;--in epic poetry, they forget their Milton's Paradise Lost preceded their...