Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/133

country, it is only just to be indulgent, and welcome any signs of accuracy and appreciation. Dumas was not a Chauvinist; his liberal principles and the breadth of mind which European travel gave him, guarded him against any of those hysterical outbursts to which the ordinary Frenchman is subject. True, we do not recognise social England of a century ago in "Kean" and "Richard Darlington;" and Catherine Howard" is, as Dumas frankly confesses, a violation of history, which he only justifics on the plea that it produced some offspring—that is, that it was done with a purpose. But he has given us the most vivid account of the last days of Charles I. that romance has yet achieved; he could see something to admire in each of the two great antagonists of the Civil War; and in "San Felice" his portrait of Nelson has much in it that is judicious and true. Dumas certainly attributes the victory at Waterloo to God, and not to Wellington, in which he is foolish; he condemns the British treatment of Napoleon at St Helena, in which he is undoubtedly right. The conception of the Englishman which Dumas formed is largely that which Jules Verne has rendered familiar to the British schoolboy, and there is this to be said for it—the type has many of the best qualities which we claim for ourselves as a race. Sir John Tanlay in the "Compagnons de Jehu" may or may not be a faithful reproduction of