The following are points of comparison which may be remarked in the
characters of the French and English. The French are great talkers, the
English great thinkers; the former excel in vivacity, the latter in
solidity of intellect. The French dress with splendour, the English with
neatness; the French live almost exclusively on bread, the English on
meat. Both are passionate; but it is the blood which rouses the passion
of a Frenchman, and the bile which exasperates an Englishman. The anger
of a Frenchman is more violent, that of an Englishman more pertinacious.
A Frenchman spends his money on his clothes, an Englishman on his belly.
A Frenchman follows the stream, an Englishman delights in struggling
against it. The friendships of the French are quickly formed, and as
quickly dissolved; those of the English are formed slowly, and as slowly
relinquished. The French respect their superiors, the English respect
themselves; the former are better citizens, the latter better men. The
mental endowments of the French are of a more refined, those of the
English of a loftier, character. The French practise virtue for the sake
of reputation, and seek the reward of meritorious actions in popular
applause; the English practise it for its own sake, and seek no reward
but that which springs from the consciousness of rectitude. There is the
same relative difference in their vices as in their virtues. Both commit
crimes; the French from the love of gain, the desire of vengeance or
similar motives; but the English are often criminal for the mere sake of
committing crime. The French, like the people of other countries, often
commit crimes in the hope of escaping punishment, but the English
frequently commit crimes because they know they cannot escape
unpunished; so that the very severity of the law, which deters others
from crime, often operates as an additional stimulus on the English for
the commission of offences, "I would commit this offence," exclaims the
Frenchman, "if the law permitted it." "I would not commit this offence,
if it were not prohibited by law," is frequently the language of the
Englishman.--_Memoirs of Lewis Holberg_.
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