Note 137 — V THE HEIRESS OF GREAT BRITAIN (HERRENHAUSEN, 1701-1714)

In The Freeholder, No. 30, April 2nd, 1716, Addison quotes, à propos of offensive French criticisms of the English and other nations, a passage from Chevreana, the amusing anthology of Urban Chevreau mentioned on another page, in which the very sensible proposition that ‘one ought not to judge well or ill of a nation from a particular person, nor of a particular person from his nation,’ is illustrated by the assertion that there are Germans, as there are Frenchmen, who have no wit, and Germans who are better skilled in Greek or Hebrew than either Scaliger or the Cardinal du Perron—‘there is not in all France a person of more wit than the present Duchess of Hanover, nor more thoroughly knowing in philosophy than was the late Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia.’ ‘Prejudiced’ witnesses are not always in the wrong.