“Why,” replied Madame, “you have many great poets, but when they write for the stage they lose themselves entirely; your Valter Scote’s play of Robe Roi is very inferior to his novel of the same name.”
“It is a great pity,” said I, “that Byron did not turn his Childe Harold into a tragedy—it has so much energy—action—variety!”
“Very true,” said Madame, with a sigh; “but the tragedy is, after all, only suited to our nation—we alone carry it to perfection.”
“Yet,” said I, “Goldoni wrote a few fine tragedies.”
“Eh bien!” said Madame, “one rose does not constitute a garden!”
And satisfied with this remark, la femme savante turned to a celebrated traveller to discuss with him the chance of discovering the North Pole.
There were one or two clever Englishmen present; Vincent and I joined them.
“Have you met the Persian prince yet?” said Sir George Lynton to me; “he is a man of much talent, and great desire of knowledge. He intends to publish his observations on Paris, and I suppose we shall have an admirable supplement to Montesquieu’s Lettres Persannes!”
“I wish we had,” said Vincent: “there are few better satires on a civilized country than the observations of visitors less polished; while on the contrary the civilized traveller, in describing the manners of the American barbarian, instead of conveying ridicule upon the visited, points the sarcasm on the visitor; and Tacitus could not have thought of a finer or nobler satire on the Roman luxuries than that insinuated by his treatise on the German simplicity.”
“What,” said Monsieur D’E—(an intelligent ci-devant emigre), “what political writer is generally esteemed as your best?”