1829.] : Affairs in General. 535 
Englishmen, and to whose expanse the present colonies are but as 
huts in a wilderness; and in all those English is the language. We 
have thus an empire of English swelling over Canada; an empire 
swelling over the South Sea; an empire swelling over the Indian Ar- 
chipelago ; an empire swelling over New Holland ; an empire swelling 
over the Southern Islands, with a crowd of minor stations, the sup- 
ports and outworks of those enormous dominions. Next we have 
British America, with all its provinces and colonies, from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, English still in tongue. In Spanish America, from 
Mexico to the Straits of Magellan, the mercantile and civil intercourse 
is spreading our language. It is making progress in India. English 
colonies will be established in the Mediterranean. Even in West 
Africa our settlements are laying the foundation of new intercourse with 
England. In East Africa we have an empire already commenced, to 
which the whole line of the coast and its islands will, before long, 
become tributary. And where then will be the boasted superiority of 
the French? It will have the range of Europe, and of Europe alone, 
and that too divided with the vernacular dialect of the kingdoms, and 
with English, which through books and travel is becoming a regular 
part of education. England is at this moment the language best 
known in an extent of space three times the size of the Roman Empire. 
It is the grand medium of communication of the whole maritime 
world. 
Even on the continent, where native prejudices are stronger, from 
their antiquity, and from an absurd pride in the follies of the time 
gone by, English is beginning to be studied in palaces and colleges, 
though the mode may sometimes be curious enough. The writer of the 
“Hungarian Tales,” tells us that in the University of Pesth there is a 
professorial chair for the English language, with a liberal endowment. 
It is at present filled by an “intelligent Frenchman,” a soldier of Napo- 
leon’s army, who has compiled in Latin, for the use of the students, an 
English grammar, dictionary, and other class-books, which have been 
honoured with the commendation of the critics of Gottingen. The 
works first placed in the hands of the scholars of Pesth, are The Vicar 
of Wakefield and Shakspeare’s comedies ! 
The Frenchman must make a fine professor of English. Of all mem 
living, the French are the most tardy in learning a foreign tongue- 
This they, of course, set down as a merit in their configuration, and igno- 
rance has the honour to be pronounced the proof of exquisiteness of 
taste. In all probability, not one of the Frenchman’s pupils will ever 
speak a syllable of intelligible English. But he will receive his salary— 
the belles and beaux of Pesth will conceive that they have Chatham’s 
language on their lips—and all parties will be happy. We recollect a 
curious instance of this style of instruction. In a German city on the 
Rhine, the Anglomania had made every one eager to read and speak 
English. But there were no teachers. In this emergency it was recol- 
lected that there were some. British prisoners in one of the French 
garrisons on the left bank. Application was made by a young lady of 
rank for one of those tutors of the fashionable language. The French 
general was too much a man of gallantry to refuse a fair lady’s request ; 
and the prisoners were mustered to ascertain their literary qualifications. 
As it was before the national schools were established, the greater num- 
ber of the gallant warriors could neither read nor write ; and they were 
