[371] Coleridge well says, ‘it is the chief of many blessings derived from the insular character and circumstances of our country, that our social institutions have formed themselves out of our proper needs and interests.’ Coleridge on the Constitution of the Church and State, 8vo. 1830, pp. 20, 21. The political consequences of this were much noticed at the time of the French Revolution. See Mémoires de La Fayette, vol. i. p. 404, Bruxelles, 1837.
[372] In another place, I shall collect the evidence of the rapidly increasing love of travelling in the sixteenth century; but it is interesting to observe, that during the latter half of the century there was first established the custom of appointing travelling tutors. Compare Barrington's Observations on the Statutes, p. 218, with a letter from Beza, written in 1598, in Mémoires et Correspondence de Du Plessis Mornay, vol. ix. p. 81.
[373] In regard to the society of women, this was still more observable, even at a much later period; and when the Countess de Boufflers visited England, at the beginning of the reign of George III., ‘on lui faisoit un mérite de sa curiosité de voir l'Angleterre; car on remarquoit qu'elle étoit la seule dame françoise de qualité qui fût venue en voyageuse depuis deux cents ans: on ne comprenoit point, dans cette classe, les ambassadrices, ni la duchesse de Mazarin, qui y étoient venues par nécessité.’ Dutens, Mémoires d'un Voyageur, vol. i. p. 217. Compare Mémoires de Madame de Genlis, vol. viii. p. 241.
[374] Orme's Life of Owen, p. 288; Mahon's History of England, vol. ii. p. 211; and many other writers.
[375] The only Englishman of genius who, during this period, was influenced by the French mind, was Dryden; but this is chiefly apparent in his plays, the whole of which are now deservedly forgotten. His great works, and, above all, those wonderful satires, in which he distances every competitor, except Juvenal, are thoroughly national, and, as mere specimens of English, are, if I may express my own judgment, to be ranked immediately after Shakspeare. In Dryden's writings there are unquestionably many Gallicisms of expression, but few Gallicisms of thought; and it is by these last that we must estimate the real amount of foreign influence. Sir Walter Scott goes so far as to say, ‘It will admit of question, whether any single French word has been naturalized upon the sole authority of Dryden.’ Scott's Life of Dryden, p. 523, 8vo. 1808. Rather a bold assertion. As to the opinion of Fox, see Lord Holland's preface to Fox's James II., 4to. 1808, p. xxxii.
[376] Another circumstance which has maintained the independence, and therefore increased the value, of our literature, is, that in no great country have literary men been so little connected with the government, or rewarded by it. That this is the true policy, and that to protect literature is to injure it, are propositions for the proof of which I must refer to chap. xi. of this volume—on the system of Louis XIV. In the mean time, I will quote the following words from a learned and, what is much better, a thoughtful writer: ‘Nor must he who will understand the English institutions leave out of view the character of the enduring works which had sprung from the salient energy of the English mind. Literature had been left to develop itself. William of Orange was foreign to it; Anne cared not for it; the first George knew no English; the second not much.’ Bancroft's History of the American Revolution, vol. ii. p. 48. Compare Forster's Life of Goldsmith, 1854, vol. i. pp. 93–96, vol. ii. p. 480.
[377] See, for evidence of this influence of England, chap. v. of the second volume.
[378] The history of this remarkable, though short-lived, union between the French and German intellects will be traced in the next volume; but its first great effect, in stimulating, or rather in creating, the German literature, is noticed by one of the most learned of their own writers: ‘Denn einestheils war zu diesen Gegenständen immer die lateinische Sprache gebraucht und die Muttersprache zu wenig cultivirt worden, anderntheils wurden diese Schriften auch meistentheils nur von Gelehrten, und zwar Universitätsgelehrten, für welche sie auch hauptsächlich bestimmt waren, gelesen. Gegen die Mitte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, als mehrere englische und französische Werke gelesen und übersetzt wurden, und durch die Vorliebe des Königs von Preussen Friedrichs II., der von Franzosen gebildet worden war, französische Gelehrte besonders geehrt und angestellt wurden, entstand ein Wetteifer der Deutschen, auch in dem schriftlichen Vortrage nicht zurück zu bleiben, und die Sprache hob sich bald zu einem hohen Grade von Vollkommenheit.’ Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. xi. pp. 286, 287.
[379] A popular view of the system of national education established in Germany will be found in Kay's Social Condition and Education of the People of Europe, vol. ii. pp. 1–344. But Mr. Kay, like most literary men, overrates the advantages of literary acquirements, and underrates that education of the faculties which neither books nor schools can impart to a people who are debarred from the exercise of civil and political rights. In the history of the protective spirit (chaps. ix. and x. of the present volume), I shall return to this subject, in connexion with France; and in the next volume I shall examine it in regard to German civilization. In the mean time, I must be allowed to protest against the account Mr. Kay has given of the results of compulsory education; an agreeable picture, drawn by an amiable and intelligent writer, but of the inaccuracy of which I possess decisive evidence. Two points only I will now refer to: 1st. The notorious fact, that the German people, notwithstanding their so-called education, are unfit to take any share in political matters, and have no aptitude for the practical and administrative parts of government. 2nd. The fact, equally notorious to those who have studied the subject, that there are more popular superstitions in Prussia, the most educated part of Germany, than there are in England; and that the tenacity with which men cling to them is greater in Prussia than in England. For illustration of the practical working, in individual cases, of compulsory education, and of the hardship it causes, see a scandalous occurrence, related in Laing's Notes of a Traveller, 8vo. 1842, p. 165, first series; and on the physical evils produced by German education, see Phillips on Scrofula, London, 1846, pp. 253, 254, where there is some useful evidence of the consequences of ‘that great German sin of over-regulation.’
[380] This is well stated by Mr. Laing, by far the ablest traveller who has published observations on European society: ‘German authors, both the philosophic and the poetic, address themselves to a public far more intellectual, and more highly cultivated, than our reading public…. In our literature, the most obscure and abstruse of metaphysical or philosophical writers take the public mind in a far lower state, simply cognisant of the meaning of language, and possessed of the ordinary reasoning powers…. The social influence of German literature is, consequently, confined within a narrower circle. It has no influence on the mind of the lower, or even of the middle classes in active life, who have not the opportunity or leisure to screw their faculties up to the pitch-note of their great writers. The reading public must devote much time to acquire the knowledge, tone of feeling, and of imagination, necessary to follow the writing public. The social economist finds accordingly in Germany the most extraordinary dulness, inertness of mind, and ignorance, below a certain level, with the most extraordinary intellectual development, learning, and genius, at or above it.’ Laing's Notes of a Traveller, first series, pp. 266, 267. The same acute observer says, in a later work (Notes, third series, 8vo. 1852, p. 12): ‘The two classes speak and think in different languages. The cultivated German language, the language of German literature, is not the language of the common man, nor even of the man far up in the middle ranks of society,—the farmer, tradesman, shopkeeper.’ See also pp. 351, 352, 354. It is singular that so clear and vigorous a thinker as Mr. Laing evidently is, should have failed in detecting the cause of this peculiar phenomenon.