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Book Ref No. - 5395 |  |
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- (ESPIARD DE LA BORDE, François Ignace) The spirit of nations. Translated from the French. London, Lockyer Davis, and R Baldwin, 1753 8vo, woodcut device on title, xvi + 406 + (2)pp, including the final leaf of publishers' advertisements, contemporary calf gilt, neatly rebacked. A very good copy. First edition in English: very scarce. A portrait of national characteristics and apparent differences illustrated in a gentle ramble through both time and space. The author considers the ancient world in some depth and then meanders through 18th century Asia and Europe. On the way he examines China and Japan, the philosophy of liberty and government, art, language and architecture, religion and education. Some of the most telling observations are on France itself. The French system of education, he declares, is defective, because it attends to "the trinkets of the mind, rather than its real ornaments". At the end of the book the author suggests a tongue-in-cheek portrait of the typical Englishman. "Here the strokes must be free and original", he writes; "the colouring interspersed with savageness, and even the manner a little inclineable to the gloomy. In the shades place melancholy figures; deep shades express their misanthropy: liberty requires strong lights; and gleams, flashing amidst the darkness, express the English genius breaking out in determined sallies. All its graces are of the harsh kind; for the English exterior, it is certain, has little of the majestic sweetness and composure of the antient statues: it is rather loftiness than majesty; he must be drawn from himself. The scene of the picture, however, is august; it exhibits the greatest objects: the sea, the parliament in front, with parties for and against liberty; all which add an extreme fury to the picture. The painter's imagination will be at liberty for some of those caprices incident to the English humour; so that, to express the Englishman, I am of opinion, that it is not the mild, natural, just and correct design of Raphael which is to be followed, but that of Angelo, haughty and terrible, profound and learned, but harsh and exaggerated. For the colouring, no better patterns than Carravacchio, Gherardi, and other authors of night-pieces." A review of David A. Bell's The cult of the nation in France: inventing nationalism, 1680-1800 points out Bell's selection of Espiard's book as his mid-century textual turning point. He even suggests that "The early expressions of national consciousness by the likes of Espiard in the 1740s gave rise naturally to a socially homogenizing 'republican critique' of national character by the 1770s and 1780s, one that forecast the Jacobin zeal to indoctrinate the masses in the Revolution". It is strange, therefore, that Bell also dismisses Espiard's Esprit des Nations as a "forgettable book". Keywords :- antiquarian, philosophy, national characteristics, France Price - £450 |
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