1S26.] Leaves Torn oal ()/ a Common- Place Book. 285 



dissent from Machiavel's proposition respecting this, is our not making 

 surticient allowance for inherent 



Cotitradiclums in National Character, — Wliich lead us to believe in a 

 change of what has suffered no change. These present a most curious 

 field for observation, though they are too much neglected by overseers 

 of national manners, who are proverbial for generalizing in their des- 

 criptions. These inconsistencies appear to arise out of a conflict, be- 

 tween the natural disposition, and religious or political circumstances 

 of a people. But in whatever they originate, nothing is at first sight 

 so inexplicable as some of these contradictions. 

 We may observe these illustrated in 



The Turk. — He is the oppressor of the conquered, and the bigoted 

 enemy and persecutor of Christian, Jew and Pagan. He is either the 

 servile executioner of a tyrant, or the factious incendiary who burns 

 his neighbour's house, in order to vent the resentment which he bears to 

 his sovereign. View him on another side, and what a different picture 

 does he not offer ? He appears the personification of charity : he is the 

 kindest of task-masters. He frees his man-slave when he has served him 

 for seven years, and his woman slave that has borne him a man child. 

 This benevolence extends itself to animals. You may gee him purchasing 

 meat and carrying it to a sick dog — a beast which his law stigmatizes 

 as impure — or buying little birds of a boy, that he may restore them to 

 liberty. 



Not only does national character exhibit these anomalies in the 

 aggregate, but the same contradictions will be found in it with respect 

 to that single quality, with which it seems to be most deeply impressed. 

 We universally acknowledge the politeness of — 



The Frenchman. — Yet who more frequently departs from the essential 

 rules of good breeding ? 



An English nobleman, who had some French gentlemen staying with 

 him at his house in the country, carried them over to Oxford ; here 

 they dined at an inn, and their entertainer, who was conversant with 

 their tastes, asked an adventurer to meet them, who had established 

 himself as a fencing-master in the university. This man (who was, 

 I believe, by birth a Persian), had been a mamelouke, and had borne 

 arms in many Asiatic and European wars. During dinner, the con- 

 versation having turned upon his adventures, it came out, that he had 

 been at a certain period in the service of Kouli Khan, when one of 

 the Frenchmen exclaimed, " Ah ! vous avez servi sous Kmili Khan. 

 Vans avez du done vous trouver au massacre de Delhi. lyitcs-vons, un 

 pen comme cela est allc." All the others joined clamorously in this 

 request, and the Persian, after remaining for an instant, like one over- 

 whelmed, exclaimed, " Messieurs, cest un songe affreux que je voudrais 

 oublier a jamais." The next morning the Persian called upon the 

 nobleman, who had known him when he was an undergraduate, and 

 said, " my lord, I have now lived in this university for ten years, with 

 boys and men, and yet never had the question asked me which you 

 heard put to me yesterday." 



The same sort of inconsistency which is manifest in his neighbour, is 

 no less conspicuous in 



The Englishman ; though with him it takes a very diiFerent shape 

 and colouring. We pique ourselves on being free from fanaticism, yet 

 upon certain points we are only exceeded in fanaticism by the pupils 

 of Jesuits and inquisitors. We lay claim to strong sense, and to the. 

 character of a thinking people, yet touch one sense, and we rave like 



