"I hate prejudice, I hate the French," said poor Charles Matthews, in one of his inimitable representations, and really the expression was no bad summary of an Englishman's faith. On the other hand, to hate and detest the English is the _sine qua non_ of French nationality, and to concede to them any rank in literature, morals, or military greatness, is to derogate from the claims of his own country. Now the question is, are the reproaches on either side absolutely just? They are not. Secondly, if they be unfair, how comes it that two people pre-eminently gifted with intelligence and information, should not have come to a better understanding, and that many a long year ago? Simply from this plain fact, that the opinions of the press have weighed against those of individuals, and that the published satires on both sides have had a greater currency and a greater credit than the calm judgment of the few. The leading journals in Paris and in London have pelted each other mercilessly for many a year. One might forgive this, were the attacks suggested by such topics as stimulate and strengthen national feeling; but no, the controversy extends to every thing, and, worse than all, is carried on with more bitterness of spirit, than depth of information. The reviewer "par excellence" of our own country makes a yearly incursion into French literature, as an Indian would do into his hunting-ground. Resolved to carry death and carnage on every side, he arms himself for the chase, and whets his appetite for slaughter by the last "_bonne bouche_" of the day. We then have some half introductory pages of eloquent exordium on the evil tendency of French literature, and the contamination of those unsettled opinions in politics, religion, and morals, so copiously spread through the pages of every French writer. The revolution of 1797 is adduced for the hundredth time as the origin of these evils; and all the crime and bloodshed of that frightful period is denounced as but the first step of the iniquity which has reached its pinnacle, in the novels of Paul de Kock. To believe the reviewer, French literature consists in the productions of this writer, the works of George Sand, Balzac, Frédéric Soulié, and a few others of equal note and mark. According to him, intrigue, seduction, and adultery, are the staple of French romance: the whole interest of every novel turning on the undiscovered turpitude of domestic life; and the great rivalry between witters, being, to try which can invent a new feature of depravity and a new fashion of sin. Were this true, it were indeed a sad picture of national degradation; was it the fact that such books, and such there are in abundance, composed the light literature of the day--were to be found in every drawing-room--to be seen in every hand--to be read with interest and discussed with eagerness--to have that wide-spread circulation which must ever carry with it a strong influence upon the habits of those who read. Were all this so, I say it would be, indeed, a deplorable evidence of the low standard of civilisation among the French. What is the fact, however? Simply that these books have but a limited circulation, and that, only among an inferior class of readers. The _modiste_ and the _grisette_ are, doubtless, well read in the mysteries of. Paul de Kock and Madame du Deffant; but in the cultivated classes of the capital, such books have no more currency than the scandalous memoirs of our own country have in the drawing-rooms of Grosvenor-square or St. James's. Balzac has, it is true, a wide-spread reputation; but many of his books are no less marked by a powerful interest than a touching appeal to the fine feelings of our nature. Alfred de Vigny, Eugene Sue, Victor Hugo, Leon Gozlan, Paul de Muset, Alexandre Dumas, and a host of others, are all popular, and, with the exception of a few works, unexceptionable on every ground of morality; but these, after all, are but the skirmishers before the army. What shall we say of Guizot, Thiers, Augustin Thierry, Toqueville, Mignet, and many more, whose contributions to history have formed an era in the literature of the age? The strictures of the reviewers are not very unlike the opinions of the French prisoner, who maintained that in England every one eat with his knife, and the ladies drank gin, which important and veracious facts he himself ascertained, while residing in that fashionable quarter of the town called St. Martin's lane. This sweeping mode of argument, _à particular_, is fatal when applied to nations. Even the Americans have suffered in the hands of Mrs. Trollope and others; and gin twist, bowie knives, tobacco chewing, and many similarly amiable habits, are not universal.