Books and Characters French and English

版权信息
RACINE
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
SHAKESPEARE'S FINAL PERIOD
THE LIVES OF THE POETS
MADAME DU DEFFAND
VOLTAIRE AND ENGLAND
A DIALOGUE
VOLTAIRE'S TRAGEDIES
VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT
THE ROUSSEAU AFFAIR
THE POETRY OF BLAKE
THE LAST ELIZABETHAN
HENRI BEYLE
LADY HESTER STANHOPE
MR．CREEVEY

　　When Ingres painted his vast 'Apotheosis of Homer,' he represented, grouped round the central throne, all the great poets of the ancient and modern worlds, with a single exception—Shakespeare．After some persuasion, he relented so far as to introduce into his picture a part of that offensive personage; and English visitors at the Louvre can now see, to their disgust or their amusement, the truncated image of rather less than half of the author of King Lear just appearing at the extreme edge of the enormous canvas．French taste, let us hope, has changed since the days of Ingres; Shakespeare would doubtless now be advanced—though perhaps chiefly from a sense of duty—to the very steps of the central throne．But if an English painter were to choose a similar subject, how would he treat the master who stands acknowledged as the most characteristic representative of the literature of France？Would Racine find a place in the picture at all？Or, if he did, would more of him be visible than the last curl of his full-bottomed wig, whisking away into the outer darkness？
　　There is something inexplicable about the intensity of national tastes and the violence of national differences．If, as in the good old days, I could boldly believe a Frenchman to be an inferior creature, while he, as simply, wrote me down a savage, there would be an easy end of the matter．But alas！nous avons changé tout cela．Now we are each of us obliged to recognise that the other has a full share of intelligence, ability, and taste; that the accident of our having been born on different sides of the Channel is no ground for supposing either that I am a brute or that he is a ninny．But, in that case, how does it happen that while on one side of that 'span of waters' Racine is despised and Shakespeare is worshipped, on the other, Shakespeare is tolerated and Racine is adored？