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"You will at least confess," replied the Count d'Erfeuil, "that there is one part of literature in which we have nothing to learn of any country. Our drama is decidedly the first in Europe; for I cannot believe that the English would presume to oppose their Shakespeare to us." "I beg your pardon," interrupted Mr Edgermond, "they have that presumption." And after this observation he was silent. "In that case I have nothing to say," continued the Count, with a smile which expressed a kind of civil contempt: "Each one may think as he pleases, but for my part I persist in believing that we may affirm without presumption that we are the very first in dramatic art. As to the Italians, if I may speak my mind freely, they do not appear even to suspect that there is a dramatic art in the world. With them the music is every thing, and the play itself nothing. Should the music of the second act of a piece be better than the first, they begin with the second act. Or, should a similar preference attach to the first acts of two different pieces, they will perform these two acts in the same evening, introducing between, perhaps, an act of some comedy in prose that contains irreproachable morality, but a moral teaching entirely composed of aphorisms, that even our ancestors have already cast off to the foreigner as too old to be of any service to them. Your poets are entirely at the disposal of your famous musicians; one declares that he cannot sing without there is in his air the word felicit

He understood them; and as he was at the same time concerned at that timidity which had the day before prevented the exertion of her talent for improvisation, and ambitious that she should obtain the applause of Mr Edgermond, he joined in the solicitations of her friends. Corinne therefore no longer hesitated.

"Well, then," said she, turning to Prince Castel-Forte, "we will accomplish the project which I have so long formed, of playing my own translation of Romeo and Juliet," "Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet?" cried Mr Edgermond; "you understand English, then?" "Yes," answered Corinne. "And you are fond of Shakespeare!" added Mr Edgermond.

It is rather surprising that with such models and with no supreme creative faculty she should have been able to draw such creditable walking gentlemen as the Frenchman Erfeuil, the Englishman Edgermond, and the Italian Castel-Forte; and should not have produced a worse hero than Nelvil.

Lord Nelville said nothing and Mr Edgermond was also silent. Some other words passed between them, very laconic, though extremely friendly, and Mr Edgermond was going, when suddenly turning back, he said, "Apropos, my lord, you can do me a kindness they tell me you are acquainted with the celebrated Corinne: I don't much like forming new acquaintances, but I am quite curious to see this lady."

When French critics tell us that as they allow the good-humoured satire on the Count d'Erfeuil to be just, we ought to do the same in reference to the "cant Britannique" of Nelvil and of the Edgermond circle, we can only respectfully answer that we should not presume to dispute their judgment in the first case, but that they really must leave us to ours in the second.

Is this not so? Lord Nelville," continued Mr Edgermond, turning to his lordship and inviting his support by a glance, quite astonished at having found courage to speak in such a numerous assembly. "I am entirely of your opinion," answered Oswald; "Metastasio, who is vauntingly called the poet of love, gives the same colouring to this passion in every country and under every circumstance.

In the meantime he prepared to visit Corinne, in order to thank her for her letter, and obtain pardon for what he had written to her, when Mr Edgermond, a relation of young Lucilia, entered the room. He was a worthy English gentleman, who had almost constantly resided in Wales, where he possessed an estate.

"As a friend," replied she; "he was so well acquainted with all the secrets of grief." "And you will perform in Italian," cried Mr Edgermond; "and I shall hear you! And you too, my dear Nelville. Ah, how happy you will be!" Then, repenting immediately this indiscreet word, he blushed: and a blush inspired by delicacy and goodness may be interesting at all periods of life.

When that is the case, such men as Mr Edgermond, that is to say, the partizans of established order, though strongly and even obstinately attached to their customs and to their manner of thinking, ought to be considered as men of rational and enlightened minds.