all infatuations connected with what is foreign, the infatuation about everything that is German, to a certain extent prevalent in England, is assuredly the most ridiculous. One can find something like a palliation for people making themselves somewhat foolish about particular languages, literatures, and people. The Spanish certainly is a noble language, and there is something wild and captivating in the Spanish character, and its literature contains the grand book of the world. French is a manly language. The French are the most martial people in the world; and French literature is admirable in many respects. Italian is a sweet language, and of beautiful simplicity--its literature perhaps the first in the world. The Italians!--wonderful men have sprung up in Italy. Italy is not merely famous for painters, poets, musicians, singers, and linguists--the greatest linguist the world ever saw, the late Cardinal Mezzofanti, was an Italian; but it is celebrated for men--men emphatically speaking: Columbus was an Italian, Alexander Farnese was an Italian, so was the mightiest of the mighty, Napoleon Bonaparte;--but the German language, German literature, and the Germans! The writer has already stated his opinion with respect to German; he does not speak from ignorance or prejudice; he has heard German spoken, and many other languages. German literature! he does not speak from ignorance; he has read that and many a literature, and he repeats . . . however, he acknowledges that there is one fine poem in the German language, that poem is the "Oberon"; a poem, by-the-bye, ignored by the Germans--a speaking fact--and of course by the Anglo-Germanists. The Germans! he has been amongst them, and amongst many other nations, and confesses that his opinion of the Germans, as men, is a very low one. Germany, it is true, has produced one very great man, the monk who fought the pope, and nearly knocked him down; but this man his countrymen--a telling fact--affect to despise, and of course the Anglo-Germanists: the father of Anglo-Germanism was very fond of inveighing against Luther. The madness, or rather foolery, of the English for foreign customs, dresses, and languages, is not an affair of to-day or yesterday--it is of very ancient date, and was very properly exposed nearly three centuries ago by one Andrew Borde, who, under the picture of a "Naked man with a pair of shears in one hand, and a roll of cloth in the other," {313} inserted the following lines along with others:--