[503]Ibid. II. 1.
[504]I cannot find these lines in the edition I have consulted.—Tr.
[505]In these Eclogues the ladies explain in good style that their friends have their lackeys for lovers: "Her favours Sylvia shares amongst mankind; such gen'rous Love could never be confin'd." Elsewhere the servant girl says to her mistress: "Have you not fancy'd, in his frequent kiss, th' ungrateful leavings of a filthy miss?"
[506]Chesterfield's Letters, II. April 22 (O. S.) 1751, p. 131. See, for a contrast, Swift's "Essay on Polite Conversation."
[507]Even in 1826, Sydney Smith, arriving at Calais, writes ("Life and Letters", II. 253, 254): "What pleases me is the taste and ingenuity displayed in the shops, and the good manners and politeness of the people. Such is the state of manners, that you appear almost to have quitted a land of barbarians. I have not seen a cobbler who is not better bred than an English gentleman."
[508]See in "Evelina," by Miss Burney, 3 vols. 1784, the character of the poor, genteel Frenchman, M. Dubois, who is made to tremble even whilst lying in the gutter. These very correct young ladies go to see Congreve's "Love for Love"; their parents are not afraid of showing them Miss Prue. See also, in "Evelina," by way of contrast, the boorish character of the English captain; he throws Mrs. Duval twice in the mud; he says to his daughter Molly: "I charge you, as you value my favour, that you'll never again be so impertinent as to have a taste of your own before my face" (I. 190). The change, even from sixty years ago, is surprising.
[509]Needham (1713-1781), a learned English naturalist, made and published microscopical discoveries and remarks on the generation of organic bodies.—Tr.
[510]The title of a philosophical novel by Diderot.—Tr.
[511]The title of a philosophical tale by Voltaire.—Tr.
[512]"The consciousness of silent endurance, so dear to every Englishman, of standing out against something and not giving in."—"Tom Brown's School Days."