The Foreign Quarterly Review (Volume 15) (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1835. Excerpt: ... the danger of hasty judgments upon what is foreign to our habits, as of amusing the reader. The knightly ' Sir' first occurs to us, of which it has been seen that M. Mezieres deprives Scott, but by no means him alone; Sir William Temple and Sir Robert Walpole being similarly reduced to the familiar appellations of William Temple and Robert Walpole; but then, in return, Squire Western is gratified with the questionable honour of being designated as Sir Western. Mezilres considers Smollett as the novelist next in favour to, if not the rival of, Scott at the present day; his Commodore Trunnion, it should seem, is a faithful picture of the living commodores of England, while his and Sterne's gross indecency is to us inoffensive. One notion, less properly belonging to our subject, we must remark upon, before we turn to the German professor, because it has of late been so incessantly repeated by French writers, that we are weary of passing it by in silent contempt. M. Mezieres catches at an assertion of Sir William Temple's respecting English impatience of privation, as confirming General Foy's assertion that the courage of English soldiers depends upon abundance of beef and superabundance of rum. Now we apprehend that even Frenchmen scarcely possess the same physical or mental energies when fainting with inanition as when healthfully fed; indeed we know upon good authority that " No Tartar e'er was fierce and cruel Upon the strength of water-gruel, Though nothing can resist his force. If first he rides, then eats his horse: " but we think the battle of Talavera might go far to prove that English soldiers, when nearly starved to death, tight quite as well as other troops in the same condition, and not much worse than well-fed Frenchmen. Dr. Wolff's mistakes are of a different kind, and w...