"Et ce fier Saxon que lion _croit nè parmè nous_,"

exactly like a Maitre d'Hôtel, who, whenever he wished to flatter me,
used to say, "Vous savez, Monsieur, je vous regarde _presque_ comme
Français." Voltaire was not ashamed at Berlin, when the Prussian
soldiers did not enact the Roman legions to his mind, to exclaim in the
midst of German princesses, "F----j'ai demandé des hommes, et on me
donne des Allemands!" Marechal Schomberg, to whom the impertinent
steward, on committing a fault, said, "Parbleu, on me prendra pour un
Allemand!" would long ago have set them to rights with his answer, "On a
tort, on devrait vous prendra pour un sot!"

To be, not to seem, is still the fairest feature in the character of
my--I had almost said nation--of my quiet, thrifty, contented, diligent,
honest countrymen. The German, at first glance, appears rarely what he
is, and strikes the stranger as awkward and heavy. Yet, behind this
plain quiet outside, there often dwells a cultivated mind, reflection,
and deep feeling of duty, honour, diligence, and domestic virtue. In our
father-land, honesty is universally at home; and during the night, you
are safer on the highways and in the forests, than in the streets of
Paris or London. "When in foreign countries," says an old author, "I
fall in with a man too helpless for a Frenchman, too ceremonious for an
Englishman, too pliable for a Spaniard, too lively for a Dutchman, too
cordial for an Italian, too modest for a Russian--a man pressing towards
me with oblique bows, and doing homage with ineffable self-denial to all
that seems of rank; then my heart, and the blood in my face, says, 'that
is thy countryman.'" How true! and how often have I lighted on such
countrymen.