He spoke with pleasure of his residence in England. He liked the English. They were a noble people; but he thought the French more amiable and agreeable to live among. "The intelligent and cultivated English," he said, "are disposed to do generous actions, but the common people are not so liberal as the same class among the French: they have bitter national prejudices. If a French prisoner escaped in England, the common people would be against him. In France it was otherwise. "When the fight was going on around Paris," said he, "and Austrian and other prisoners were brought in wounded, and conducted along the Boulevards, the Parisian populace showed great compassion for them, and gave them money, bread, and wine."
Of the liberality of the cultivated class of English he gave an anecdote. Two French prisoners had escaped from confinement, and made their way to a sea-port, intending to get over in a boat to France. All their money, however, was exhausted, and they had not wherewithal to hire a boat. Seeing a banker's name on a door, they went in, stated their case frankly, and asked for pecuniary assistance, promising to repay it faithfully. The banker at once gave them one hundred pounds. They offered a bill, or receipt, but he declined it. "If you are not men of honor," said he "such paper would be of no value; and if you are men of honor, there is no need of it." This circumstance was related to Talma by one of the parties thus obliged.
In the course of conversation, we talked of the theatre. Talma had been a close observer of the British stage, and was alive to many of its merits. He spoke of his efforts to introduce into French acting the familiar style occasionally used by the best English tragedians; and of the difficulties he encountered in the stately declamation and constantly-recurring rhymes of French tragedy. Still he found, he said, every familiar touch of nature Immediately appreciated and applauded by the French audiences, Of Shakspeare he expressed the most exalted opinion, and said he should like to attempt some of his principal characters in English, could he be sure of being able to render the text without a foreign accent. He had represented his character of Hamlet, translated into French, in the Théâtre Français with great success; but he felt how much more powerful it would be if
