the generous and eloquent Frenchmen, beside Chateaubriand, who have, in
the course of the last thirty years, nobly suspended their own burning
nationality, in order to render a more rapturous homage at the feet of
Milton; and some of them have raised Milton almost to a level with angelic
natures. Not one of them has thought of looking for him _below_ the earth.
As to Shakspeare, M. Michelet detects in him a most extraordinary mare's
nest. It is this: he does "not recollect to have seen the name of God" in
any part of his works. On reading such words, it is natural to rub one's
eyes, and suspect that all one has ever seen in this world may have been
a pure ocular delusion. In particular, I begin myself to suspect that the
word "_la gloire_" never occurs in any Parisian journal. "The great English
nation," says M. Michelet, "has one immense profound vice," to wit,
"pride." Why, really, that may be true; but we have a neighbor not
absolutely clear of an "immense profound vice," as like ours in color and
shape as cherry to cherry. In short, M. Michelet thinks us, by fits and
starts, admirable, only that we are detestable; and he would adore some of
our authors, were it not that so intensely he could have wished to kick
them.

2. M. Michelet thinks to lodge an arrow in our sides by a very odd remark
upon Thomas à Kempis: which is, that a man of any conceivable European
blood--a Finlander, suppose, or a Zantiote--might have written Tom; only
not an Englishman. Whether an Englishman could have forged Tom, must remain
a matter of doubt, unless the thing had been tried long ago. That problem
was intercepted for ever by Tom's perverseness in choosing to manufacture
himself. Yet, since nobody is better aware than M. Michelet, that this very
point of Kempis _having_ manufactured Kempis is furiously and hopelessly
litigated, three or four nations claiming to have forged his work for him,
the shocking old doubt will raise its snaky head once more--whether this
forger, who rests in so much darkness, might not, after all, be of English