Excerpt from The Law Review, Vol. 12: And Quarterly Journal of British and Foreign Jurisprudence; May, 1850. August, 1850 Merits of that great people, no one can doubt that we believe them to be a nation most highly gifted. Their brilliant genius, their vast capacity for the sciences, their extraordinary powers of labour, exceed those qualities in our own and every other nation.1 Their excellence their unrivalled excellence, in the lighter qualities which form the charm of society their indomitable energy, if less steady, yet more vehement than our own, in directing all their faculties towards the object in view, with their strong feelings and high sense of honour, these are points which, if not peculiar, it would be equally vain to deny and superfluous to extol. But there is a cardinal defect in steadiness and calm reflection, which detracts from the praise of their mighty powers, as it so often impedes their successful application. There is an itch after renown, national and individual, which no gratification can assuage, and which must be allayed at all costs and at all hazards. There is a tendency to overrate the brilliant, and undervalue the useful, which is the parent of many excesses, and the enemy of solid improvement. In a word, while we are compelled to'say that the French are greatly to be admired and not so greatly to be respected, we must also record the mere fact, for it is no speculative Opinion, that France is a country in which it is far easier to make a Revolution than to effect a Reform. This unhappily is proved by the last two years the last fatal two years' experience, still to be a characteristic of the French people. But we willingly admit, at least we are anxious to believe, that they are greatly improved Within the last half century. N 0 man can suppose it possible that the same people would now do, or suffer to be done, the things which have, since 1793 and 1794, left a stain on their name never to be washed out. It is certain that in England, the monsters who in France filled the world with horror at their names would never have been allowed to commit the most trifling part of the same atrocities. What town in this country (we speak of Eng. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.