This is particularly the case with those who call themselves German students.

It is said, and the writer believes with truth, that when a woman falls in love with a particularly ugly fellow, she squeezes him with ten times more zest than she would a handsome one if captivated by him.

So it is with these German students; no sooner have they taken German in hand than there is nothing like German.

Oh, the dear, delightful German! How proud am I that it is now my own, and that its divine literature is within my reach! And all this whilst mumbling the most uncouth speech, and crunching the most crabbed literature in Europe.
The writer is not an exclusive admirer of everything English; he does not advise his country-people never to go abroad, never to study foreign languages, and he does not wish to persuade them that there is nothing beautiful or valuable in foreign literature; he only wishes that they would not make themselves fools with respect to foreign people, foreign languages or reading; that if they chance to have been in Spain, and have picked up a little Spanish, they would not affect the airs of Spaniards; that if males they would not make Tom-fools of themselves by sticking cigars into their mouths, dressing themselves in zamarras, and saying, carajo! {312} and if females that they would not make zanies of themselves by sticking cigars into their mouths, flinging mantillas over their heads, and by saying carai, and perhaps carajo too; or if they have been in France or Italy, and have picked up a little French or Italian, they would not affect to be French or Italians; and particularly, after having been a month or two in Germany, or picked up a little German in England, they would not make themselves foolish about everything German, as the Anglo-German in the book does--a real character, the founder of the Anglo-German school in England, and the cleverest Englishman who ever talked or wrote encomiastic nonsense about Germany and the Germans.

Of all infatuations connected with what is foreign, the infatuation about everything that is German, to a certain extent prevalent in England, is assuredly the most ridiculous.