and his collection of curiosities. His vanity prevents his seeing that when Sir Walter found no access to his ears, he was obliged to appeal to his eyes, and thought that the exhibition of a rare book, a fine picture,-a valuable coin, or a curious relic, was the best expedient to amuse a man to whom he could not talk. But what renders more absurd all this criticism on the style of a conversation which he did not comprehend, is the fact, which M. d'Haussez rather betrays than confesses, that, such as it was, it was all supplied by Sir W. Scott,-indifferent as his French may have appeared to M. d'Haussez, it was the only medium of communication; and if we, in our turn, were disposed to be critical on such points, we should wonder that a man should have been selected to be Minister of Marine of France, who did not understand the language of that great maritime power into so many relations with which his daily duties must have brought him,that such a man should have been months and years in England without being able to obtain even a smattering of our language, -and that nevertheless his ignorance should not prevent his criticising the conversation of one of the greatest geniuses in the world--nor his writing and publishing two volumes, all on matters which he so little understands, that even his eyes deceive him, and he thinks London consists of houses two stories high! But, finally, after all these dénigrantes observations on Sir W. Scott, M. d'Haussez adds-

'It must be said that he was suffering at this time the first attack of a disease which, eighteen months afterwards, terminated in his dissolution.'-vol. ii. p. 163.

Yet even this fact does not open M. d'Haussez' eyes; a stroke of palsy, under which he was still suffering, and which was followed a very few days after M. d'Haussez' visit by another, does not account to his considerate mind for the imperfect pronunciation of a foreign language-for sparing conversation, for words slowly doled out, for the absence of wit and vivacity. Oh, no! but after the slight allusion to palsy which we have just extracted, he makes no further allowance for disease, and a d'Haussez pronounces sentence of mental inferiority on the author of Marmion and Waverley! We beg pardon as to Marmion ;-M. d'Haussez does not, we believe, any where disclose that he suspected Sir Walter had ever written a poem. We have dwelt a little too much, we fear, on this point, but besides our desire to do justice to Sir Walter Scott's memory, we could not have selected a more appropriate occasion for doing justice on M. d'Haussez' presumption and ignorance.

In talking of female education, he observes that the governess who,

who, in England, teaches French is generally a Swiss. He, who never looks below the surface, does not see that the reason of this preference is, that these Swiss governesses are Protestants, and that English parents are wisely averse to subjecting their children to the influence and proselytizing zeal of a Roman Catholic instruc

tress.

M. d'Haussez is amazed at finding that the English, when he saw them more nearly, did not exactly correspond with his preconceived ideas; and to reconcile himself with himself, he has recourse to a theory :

6

• There is a great difference between an Englishman on the Continent and an Englishman in London. Hence originates the erroneous opinion of the English on the other side of the Straits-an opinion founded on the defects as well as the virtues of their character. The fault of this error lies not in the judges, but in the judged: the former pronounce an opinion on what they see; the latter exhibit themselves in an assumed character, and this fictitious character is not so estimable as their natural one.

'An Englishman abroad advertises, in a manner, his desire to preserve the customs of his country; he even exaggerates these, lest any of the details should escape: he pushes his prejudices even to this extent, that he wishes to bend the customs of every country he visits to those of England; he evinces susceptibility, disdain, pride; he requires attention without making any effort to deserve it, and is everywhere at his ease. Does he enter a salon, he hardly bows to youawaits an introduction (a usage foreign to every country except England) before he commences a conversation, and is offended at the least neglect of those observances of which he fancies he should be the object. The crowd should, in his idea, pack itself tighter in order to give a free passage to himself, his wife, and three or four daughters, who hang upon him, and would not for the world be separated. He is inexorable on the point of conceding the smallest English custom, lest it should tend to impeach that nationality of which he is so proud. 'An Englishman at home is quite a different being: prejudiced in favour of strangers, he lays himself out to please them by adopting their manners and their language, and exaggerating the advantages of both. On these occasions he divests himself altogether of his national habits, to sympathise more fully with strangers, and exhibits a politeness, a courtesy, and a readiness to oblige, which the person who had seen him out of his own country could form no idea of.'— pp. 60-62.

For these statements there is some colour; and the English, no doubt, appear to foreigners more amiable,-more intelligible,―at home than abroad; but we believe that M. d'Haussez' theory of their manners being intentionally different is a short-sighted mistake. Though the English are infinitely better acquainted with Franceher language, her manners, and her society,-than the French with

England,

England, yet very few-hardly one-can be perfectly at home there: the majority must speak the language painfully, and understand it imperfectly when hastily spoken. It must also be very rare that an Englishman should be so domiciled in French society as to be au fait of all their little habits, and he, therefore, must necessarily bring into their company his own original manners, and all he says and all he does must have his national mark upon it. Thus it is necessity and ignorance, and often diffidence-not, as M. d'Haussez imagines, disdain and pride'—which give to the Englishman abroad the raidure, the awkwardness, the apparent want of sociability, of which his critic complains. At home he is in his own element, and restored to his natural ease, good manners, and good humour: if he receives French visiters, he speaks French more fluently, because with a confidence that he speaks it better than his guest can English. As to manners and habits, he is no longer a puzzled observer and awkward imitator; he is himself the judge and model; and the same man charms M. d'Haussez in England who displeased him in France, only because M. d'Haussez did not comprehend, and of course does not make allowance for the real cause of the difference. The fault is in the judge, and not the judged.'

Some of M. d'Haussez' mistakes are more grave. Witness his chapter on hospitals:

་

They [hospitals] have commonly a special destination, either as respects the class of poor admitted within their walls, or the class of complaints to the cure of which they are devoted. Philanthropy in England is ever on the watch that compassion be not extended beyond proper limits. Hence each hospital has its rules and registers. It is, therefore, with extreme difficulty that an unfortunate stranger, overtaken by illness, at a distance from his native land, or the victim of a sudden accident happening to him out of his parish-it is with difficulty, I say, that such an unfortunate being finds in these asylums, reserved to the mitigation of certain specified evils, the kind of help which his peculiar case demands. Carried from hospital to hospital, the patient, if he obtain admission at any, owes his good fortune to the kind offices of some one affected by his misfortune.'-vol. ii. pp. 1, 2. Now, all this is absolutely untrue. There are no doubt a few hospitals appropriated to those particular diseases in which separation from other patients is desirable,-such as fever hospitals, small-pox hospitals, Lock hospitals, and lying-in hospitals; or where a peculiar branch of medical science is specially concerned -as rupture hospitals, or infirmaries for diseases of the eye or the ear; and this classification of relief (if we may use the expression) seems to us likely to be beneficial to the patient and advantageous to science but the great majority of hospitals make no such distinction; and we will venture to say, that no such case as that

stated

stated by M. d'Haussez ever occurred, of an accident happening to a man out of his own parish, and his being carried from hospital to hospital, seeking in vain for admittance. But the most curious part of the case is, the malignant bigotry with which M. d'Haussez follows up his misstatement of the fact:

'Protestant benevolence does not, like Catholic charity, keep an open table; she does not, like the latter, throw open the doors of her charitable establishments to all maladies alike, without inquiring what they are, or whence they originated. No-she proceeds with order, with caution, without being carried away by indiscreet pity. So much the worse for sufferers who are not ill according to these combinations; for if they present themselves at one establishment of this nature to get cured, they are told that such diseases are not treated here, and that they must go to another!'-pp. 2, 3.

Who but M. d'Haussez ever found out a system of theology in the hospital regulations of either England or France? But, as is usual with this gentleman, and with every man who talks or writes about what he does not understand, he soon falls into inconsistencies and contradictions; for instance, he says that English hospitals are managed by a system of philanthropy, and the French by the routine of charity.' (vol. ii. p. 3.) The distinction is not very palpable; but we gather from the context, that he means that the English hospitals are regulated by a system of general philanthropy, and those of France by the impulses of individual charity; and yet he soon after tells us that the French hospitals are public establishments, and that one of the defects of the English is, that they have been founded and are directed by private charity. Again

• I am far from blaming the whole system of English hospitals, or refusing praise to what I have observed deserving of it. The attentions bestowed on the sick are unremitting; there is great attention paid to cleanliness; the regimen is good; but there prevails, nevertheless, a coldness, a methodical system, a repulsiveness, a want of consolation, which are truly afflicting to the beholder.'-pp. 3, 4.

And, yet, he subsequently observes :—

• Notwithstanding the great inferiority of the English hospitals to the French in point of organization, one cannot be unmindful of the immense advantages they procure for suffering humanity.'-p. 10.

Now, certainly, from all his preceding observations, one would not have foreseen that it was in organization that our too systematical and over-methodical hospitals would be inferior to those of France. He blows hot and cold from the same mouth. If M. d'Haussez had confined himself to an eulogy on those admirable women—the sœurs de la charité, who devote their saint-like lives to affording medical attendance and religious consolation in the French

VOL. L. NO. XCIX.

M

French hospitals, and to the French poor in general, we should have cordially agreed with him; and we are as much disposed as he can be to lament that religious comfort is so scantily administered in our medical institutions; but we could not permit his charges against the medical and administrative departments of our hospitals to pass undenied.

Indeed, on medical subjects M. d'Haussez seems to be more than ordinarily ignorant, and of course more than ordinarily dogmatical.

'The incredulous,' he says, in the abilities of physicians will find, in a comparison of the science as practised in England and in other countries, powerful arguments in favour of their scepticism. In France, for instance, physicians are men of profound attainments in everything that relates directly or indirectly to their art.'-p. 240. On the contrary

In England, opportunities of study are rare, precarious, and costly. There are no other schools than hospitals, no other mode of teaching than the unreasoning observation of practice.'-p. 241.

On this the translator rather sharply remarks

It is for this very reason that English physicians are the first in the world. Were they to pursue the French system, they might attain "the bad pre-eminence" of French physicians, who are among the worst of the tribe.'-Ibid.

We will not pronounce, with the translator, French physicians the worst of the tribe,' because we, fortunately, have had but a slender acquaintance with them, but we apprehend that their character will not be much elevated when the panegyric comes from the same pen which indites the following tissue of ignorance and falsehood-we are sorry that we cannot use milder terms

'If the state of medicine should exhibit a sinister influence as relates to the prolongation of human life, most assuredly it would do so in England. The different causes just indicated are all attended with their effects. The absence of long and continuous study limits medical knowledge to vague and very superficial speculations. Violent remedies derived at random from the pharmacy, and empiricism, are the means resorted to.'

What follows shows that M. d'Haussez studied England in Edinburgh. He confounds the Scotch method of practice with the English, which is quite a different thing, and he contrives to misrepresent grossly the very little that he had really observed of the northern system.

'There exists, under the name of surgeons, a class of men exercising the healing art, or at least that of having patients under cure. In England, remedies are ordered and sold as candles, sugar, or cloth. Surgeons differ from physicians in this, that they cannot receive fees.

They