As to Shakspere, M. Michelet detects in him a most extraordinary mare's
nest. It is this: he does "not recollect to have seen the name of God"
in any part of his works. On reading such words, it is natural to rub
one's eyes, and suspect that all one has ever seen in this world may
have been a pure ocular delusion. In particular, I begin myself to
suspect that the word "_la gloire_" never occurs in any Parisian
journal. "The great English nation," says M. Michelet, "has one immense
profound vice"--to wit, "pride." Why, really, that may be true; but we
have a neighbour not absolutely clear of an "immense profound vice," as
like ours in colour and shape as cherry to cherry. In short, M.
Michelet thinks us, by fits and starts, admirable--only that we are
detestable; and he would adore some of our authors, were it not that so
intensely he could have wished to kick them.
2. M. Michelet thinks to lodge an arrow in our sides by a very odd
remark upon Thomas a Kempis: which is, that a man of any conceivable
European blood--a Finlander, suppose, or a Zantiote--might have written
Tom; only not an Englishman. Whether an Englishman could have forged
Tom must remain a matter of doubt, unless the thing had been tried long
ago. That problem was intercepted for ever by Tom's perverseness in
choosing to manufacture himself. Yet, since nobody is better aware than
M.
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