ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 403, 13 June 1849, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

A German Liberal's Opinion of Engt,a.nd. — In the Athenaeum we find a review of a work called " Reminiscences of my Life," by Gustav Kombst, who died lately in Edinburgh. He had been forced to leave Germany, and take refuge in Switzerland and trance, and latterly came to this couutry. His extreme democratic opinions were consideiably modified by what he saw in Britain, and be states bis views in the following passage :—: — " Fcr more than a year past, I have often had in mind, and have told my friends by word of mouth and in writing, bow I congratulate myself on the fate that brought me to Great Britain. When I reflect on what has befallen and influenced me during the last seven -years, I can hardly wish — as far as my progressive development is concerned — to have been thrown into a different coarse of circumstances. Like the faithful in the Bible, I may exclaim, 'All has happened to me for the best.' But' it was long before the acknowledgment of this could make itsell felt. I have had to reach it through bitter sufferings and violent struggles. When I

first trod on British ground, I was repulsed ly much that I perceived in the people: external coldn ss, leserve, ceremonial bigotry, selfishness, sirongly moulded aristocratic usages and manners. This is the effect they produce on nearly all strangers, those especially who come from France ; and above all, on the French themselves. I have heard French republicans curse the land and inhabitants of Britain, while they were living here in exile ; but even in those days I was often inclined to smile at their assertion that Englishmen are centuries in arrear of true civilization ! Now, think of the condition of a stranger here, in the utmost distress, forced to struggle hardly for a bare living ; and the various influences of climate also, and it will easily bt imagined that I felt rt first anything but comfortable in Great IJn<ain. * * * But in couise of time my mind grew ever more and more awakened and strengthened by the view of this nation, of this popular life on the grandest scale, this stirring activity, this manliness, this fearlessness, this selfpossessed confident advance, this well-trained strength, this commanding spirit, for which the universe is scarcely capacious enough. Here, for the first time in my life, I saw what a sense of independence and liberty can achieve in a vigorous people. In Switzerland and France 1 had seen only caricatures of both. In place of aversion and hatred, there grew within me, in time, liking and a disposition to envy a nation that — greater than the Romans — makes its conquests, not to destroy, but to plant all over the world seeds of civilization. This civilizing process, it is true, may wear the appearance of selfishness for the moment, and to the short-sight-, ed ; but ouly look at India, which the ignorait have so often called a stain on the history of Great Britain! It is scarcely eighty years since the English first got a firm hold on that country ; and now everything there is already pressing on towards peace, and the arts of peace — where, before then, the people of that favoured soil were plundered by robbers, drained to exhaustion by their princes, desolated by national plagues of all kinds, and exposed an easy prey to every warlike destroyer around them. And what seeds of new states and new civilization has not England scattered in all directions during the long thirty years' peace ? What have other nations done in comparison ? And wherever the Englishman goes, thither Freedom accompanies him. These seeds will spring up, and some are already growing; and perchance hereafter, when iv Europe all may have fallen into the deep night of barbarism, when the glorious Albion herself, the mother of such sons, may be sunk into decay, even then, not the name of England only, but her spirit also, and her institutions, will yet fill the universe, and emancipate nations that now have scarcely a distant idea of the light that is coming to them from the west. What a prospect — to name but one instance — for China ! But here I must pause, lest I should be accused of exaggeration and unbounded partiality for a country in which I have found a shelter and a second home. To be brief. In a country whose inhabitants are by nature prone to moderation, I, too, learned to moderate my wishes, exertions, and expectations, to become, in short, more modest. Among cool observers, and practical men, I was often made to descend from ideals to the common realities of things. But from this I gained the advantage of better understanding men and their circumstances as they are. My whole disposition is practical ; but in Great Britain I first found a wide field of objects on which to exert myself. I had to frame for myself anew an existence and a reputation. For here I was nothing, had nothing, knew no one. In Great Britain, too, I got altogether rid of the purely ideal and subjective. I have more and more thoroughly learned that there are diagonal lines of the mental powers, as well as opposed physical forces ; and that it is wiser to take so much as circumstances allow us to attain or command, than to reject at once what may be attainable, because it may not be the highest and best of possible things, nor especially that particular thing we had fixed our thoughts upon. lam also become more tolerant; and no longer demand impossibilities measured by an abstract scale. No longer a zealot, no enthusiast of the common sort, nor inclined to play the apostle without being called to the office ; but still full of warmth tov/ards all that is good and noble, and a fearless combatant and defender — whenever there may be just cause before me. In one word, the large and many virtues of the English people have aided the development and maturity of whatever of manly and effectual lay in ray own nature. And for this 1 shall ever feel sincerely grateful to them."

Charles Lamb in a Fix. — We travelled with one of those troublesome fellow-pas-sengers in a stage coach that is called a well informed man. For twenty miles we discoursed od the properties of steam, probabi-

lities of carriage by ditto, till all my science, and more than all ray patience was exhausted, and I was thinking of escaping my torment by getting up on the outside, when, getting into Bishop's Stortford, my gentleman, spying some farmng land, put an unlucky question to me, " What sort of a crop of turnips I thought we should have this year ?" Emma's eyes turned to n-e, to know what in the world I could have to say ; and she burst into a violent fit of laughter, maugre her pale, serious cheeks, when, with the greatest gravity, I replied that it depended, I believed, upon the boiled legs of mutton ! — Final Memorial of Charles Lamb.