Mrs. Somers would, perhaps, have acknowledged the beauties of Phædre, if she had not been piqued by this defiance; but exaggeration on one side produced injustice on the other: and these disputes about Racine and Shakspeare were continually renewed, and never ended to the satisfaction of either party. Those who will not make allowances for national prejudice, and who do not consider how much all our tastes are influenced by early education, example, and the accidental association of ideas, may dispute for ever without coming to any conclusion; especially, if they avoid stating any distinct proposition; if each of the combatants sets up a standard of his own, as the universal standard of taste; and if, instead of arguments, both parties have recourse to wit and ridicule. In these skirmishes, however, Mad. de Coulanges, though apparently the most eager for victory, never seriously lost her temper--her eagerness was more of manner than of mind; after pleading the cause of Racine, as if it were a matter of life and death, as if the fate of Europe or the universe depended upon it, she would turn to discuss the merits of a riband with equal vehemence, or coolly observe that she was hoarse, and that she would quit Racine for a better thing--_de l’eau sucré_. Mrs. Somers, on the contrary, took the cause of Shakspeare, or any other cause that she defended, seriously to heart. The wit or raillery of her adversary, if she affected not to be hurt by it at the moment, left a sting in her mind which rankled long and sorely. Though she often failed to refute the arguments brought against her, yet she always rose from the debate precisely of her first opinion; and even her silence, which Mad. de Coulanges sometimes mistook for assent or conviction, was only the symptom of contemptuous pity--the proof that she deemed the understanding of her opponent beneath all fair competition with her own. The understanding of Mad. de Coulanges had, indeed, in the space of a few months, sunk far below the point of mediocrity, in Mrs. Somers’ estimation--she had begun by overvaluing, and she ended by underrating it. She at first had taken it for granted that Mad. de Coulanges possessed a “very superior understanding and great strength of mind;” then she discovered that la comtesse was “uncommonly superficial, even for a Frenchwoman;” and at last she decided, that “really Mad. de Coulanges was a very silly woman.” Mrs. Somers now began to be seriously angry with Emilie for always being of her mother’s opinion: “It is really, Mlle. de Coulanges, carrying your filial affection too far. We cold-hearted English can scarcely conceive this sort of fervid passion, which French children express about every thing, the merest trifle, that relates to _mamma!_--Well! it is an amiable national prejudice; and one cannot help wishing that it may never, like other amiable enthusiasms, fail in the moment of serious trial.”