servants, are, beyond all measure, of larger, better cultivated, and less
prejudiced minds than those ranks in England. The fact is, that all with
you pretend to be savans, and this is the chief reason why you have been
censured as shallow. We see your fine gentleman, or your petit bourgeois,
give himself the airs of a critic or a philosopher; and because he is
neither a Scaliger nor a Newton, we forget that he is only the bourgeois
or the pelit maitre, and set down all your philosophers and critics with
the censure of superficiality, which this shallow individual of a shallow
order may justly have deserved. We, the English, it is true, do not
expose ourselves thus: our dandies, our tradesmen, do not vent second
rate philosophy on the human mind, nor on les beaux arts: but why is
this? Not because they are better informed than their correspondent
ciphers in France, but because they are much worse; not because they can
say a great deal more on the subject, but because they can say nothing at
all."

"You do us more than justice," said Monsieur D'A--, "in this instance:
are you disposed to do us justice also in another? It is a favourite
propensity of your countrymen to accuse us of heartlessness and want of
feeling. Think you that this accusation is deserved?"

"By no means," replied Vincent. "The same cause that brought on the
erroneous censure we have before mentioned, appears to me also to have
created this; viz. a sort of Palais Royal vanity, common to all your
nation, which induces you to make as much display at the shop window as
possible. You show great cordiality, and even enthusiasm, to strangers;
you turn your back on them--you forget them. 'How heartless!' cry we. Not
at all! The English show no cordiality, no enthusiasm to strangers, it is
true: but they equally turn their backs on them, and equally forget them!
The only respect, therefore, in which they differ from you, is the