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[157] French, though you had before celebrated our native plainness[1]. If they were, it is time we broke loose from dependance———Time that Englishmen drew water from their own springs; for, if manners are not a painted substitute for morals, we have only to cultivate our reason, and we shall not feel the want of an arbitrary model. Nature will suffice; but I forget myself:—Nature and Reason, according to your system, are all to give place to authority; and the gods, as Shake-
- ↑ Page 118. 'It is not clear, whether in England we learned those grand and decorous principles, and manners, of which considerable traces yet remain, from you, or whether you took them from us. But to you, I think, we trace them best. You seem to me to be–gentis incunabula nostræ. France has always more or less influenced manners in England, and when your fountain is choaked up and polluted, the stream will not run long, or not run clear with us, or perhaps with any nation This gives all Europe, in my opinion, but too close and connected a concern in what is done in France.'
speare
