You English," she continued, shaking her head at Maltravers, "have spoiled and corrupted us; we are not content to imitate you, we must excel you; we out-horror horror, and rush from the extravagant into the frantic!" "The ferment of the new school is, perhaps, better than the stagnation of the old," said Maltravers.

"Yet even you," addressing himself to the Italians, "who first in Petrarch, in Tasso, and in Ariosto, set to Europe the example of the Sentimental and the Romantic; who built among the very ruins of the classic school, amidst its Corinthian columns and sweeping arches, the spires and battlements of the Gothic--even you are deserting your old models and guiding literature into newer and wilder paths.

'Tis the way of the world--eternal progress is eternal change." "Very possibly," said Signor Tirabaloschi, who understood nothing of what was said.

"Nay, it is extremely profound; on reflection, it is beautiful--superb! you English are so--so--in short, it is admirable.
Ugo Foscolo is a great genius--so is Monti; and as for Rossini,--you know his last opera--_cosa stupenda_!" Madame de Montaigne glanced at Maltravers, clapped her little hands, and laughed outright.

Maltravers caught the contagion, and laughed also.
But he hastened to repair the pedantic error he had committed of talking over the heads of the company.