1801. 1811. 1921. 1831. England and Wales, 8,872.90 10.163.876 11.978.75 13.894.569 1,599.068 1.805.683 2.093,456 2.365.507 wealth, education, and general condition, even more than taken at intervals of ten years from 1801; and the fol the usual differences are to be found. Notwithstanding lowing table will show the gradual increase which har great improvements in agriculture of late years, the occurred during these intervals. country cannot produce wheat, oats, and other cereal grains, in sufficient abundance to meet the demands of a daily increasing and hard-labouring population, and what is deficient is excluded, except at high duties, which render the price of bread higher than it is elsewhere in Europe. Without entering minutely into this great and much debated question, it may be mentioned as a general result, that the difficulty of purchasing food leads to a corresponding depression of circumstances in the humbler orders of the community, and either causes an extensive dependence on poor-rates for support, or produces debased and dangerous habits of living. The poor of England are entitled by law to support in work houses, according to the provisions of an act of Parliament passed in 1834; in 1839, the money expended on paupers in England was £4,406,907, being only about twothirds of what had, during some years, been expended under a somewhat different system, and a less careful administration of funds. In Ireland, a similar poor-law has lately been introduced, and is likely to prove of great service to that part of the empire. In Scotland, none but the impotent or very aged poor can legally claim relief from the parish funds: these are very inadequately supplied. The humbler classes are accordingly, in many places, in a very miserable condition. The entire outlay for the parochial poor in Scotland was lately no more than £140,000. The present condition of society throughout the United Kingdom exhibits the spectacle of great and valuable efforts at improvement among the more enlightened classes. Within the last ten years, the utility of the press has been immensely increased, and works of instruction and entertainment have been circulated in departments of society where formerly nothing of the kind was heard of. The establishment of mechanics' institutions, lyceums, exhibitions of works of art, reading societies, and other means of intellectual improvement, forms another distinguishing feature of modern society. At the same time, great masses of the people, for lack of education, and from other unfortunate circumstances, are evidently gravitating into a lower condition. From these reasons, and others connected with the development of our manufacturing and commercial system, convictions for crime have been latterly increasing. In 1837, there were 17,090 convictions for crime in England. The late establishment of an improved prison system in Scotland, independently of other advantageous circumstances, is expected to greatly lessen the number of offenders in that part of the empire. England is now provided with a law for enforcing the registration of births, marriages, and deaths; but in other parts of the empire, Scotland in particular, the arrangements for these useful objects are very imperfect. During the year ending June 30, 1839, the number of births, marriages, and deaths, in England and Wales, was as follows:-births, 480,540; marriages, 121,083; deaths, 331,007. This enumeration, compared with the previous year, shows, for births, an increase of 80,828; for deaths, a decrease of 4949; and for marriages, an increase of 9602. At the celebration of marriage, parties are required to sign their names; and it appears that, on an average, 33 in the 100 of males, and 49 in the 100 of females, sign with a mark, being unable to write. The average age of men in England at marriage is about 27 years, and of women, 25 years and a few months. An account of the population of the empire has been *The annual consumption of all kinds of grain in the United Kingdom was, a few years ago, estimated at 52,000,000 quarters, about a twelfth part of which would require to be imported. All ordinary kinds of animal food, or foreign produce, are en.rely excluded. The increase of population has been greatest in the manufacturing districts, where, in some instances, it has been double of those which are merely agricultural; as, for example, the increase in the manufacturing counties of England, from 1821 to 1831, was 22 per cent., while in the agricultural counties it was only 103. It has been ascertained, that, in 1831, there were of the classes be longing to the aristocracy in Great Britain, from 3000 to 4000 fainilies; of squires and gentlemen, who are landproprietors, stockholders, money-lenders, &c., from 50,000 to 60,000 families; of learned professions-36,000 clergy of all denominations, about 30,000 lawyers, and 50.000 physicians, surgeons, apothecaries-making 116,000 families, with half as many more dependents; of farming tenants, about 250,000 families, and of their labourers, 400,000 families; of merchants, shopkeepers, and gene ral traders, 900,000 families; of artisans, 200,000 families; of manufacturers in all lines, 500,000 families; of labourers, porters, and servants, 600,000 families; and of destitute paupers, soldiers, &c., 800,000 families. The statement of the aggregate population of the Bri tish islands, affords no idea of the force which is actually employed in agriculture and manufactures. The effec tive labourers (men) are estimated to amount to no more than 7,000,000, whereas, reckoning the powers exerted in productive industry by animals, mills, steam-engines, and mechanism of various kinds, the force is equal to the strength of more than sixty millions of working men. An estimate was formed a few years ago of the total annual income of all classes of people in the United Kingdom, with the aggregate value of the articles of use and luxury which each produces, and from this we make the following extract: Value of agricultural and dairy produce, Total of produce and property annually £236,600.000 21.400.000 57.773.059 148,050.000 £503,923,059 An estimate was also formed of the value of the whole property, public and private, which has been created and accumulated by the people of this country, and which they now actually possess. This value, when the sum is expressed by figures, is so immense, that it eludes the imagination to conceive it. Value of productive private property, unproductive, or dead stock, Total public and private property, £2.995,000,000 5-0,700.000 103.800.000 £3,679,500.000 The wealth of the empire is distributed in the following proportions between the three countries: England, Productive private Unproductive Public pro- property. 318.100.000 622,100,000 . 51.100.000 perty. £42.000 000 3.000.000 11.900.000 The proportion which these values bear to the popu lation in each country is not suggested by the table; but in England (taking productive and unproductive pro perty together) the ratio is £186 to each person; in Scotland, £160; and in Ireland, £96. The following is the latest statement of the extent and population of the empire: If to this we add 8,205,382 for Ireland, which, how ever, we have only on newspaper authority, the total population of the United Kingdom, on the night of June 6, was 26,870,143. The returns include only such par 1,496,000 of the army, navy, and merchant seamen, as were at the 91,000 time of the census within the kingdom on shore. 1,930,000 23.000 826,650 4,457,598 The increase of the population, as compared with the returns of 1831, is at the rate of 14-5 per cent. for England; 13 per cent. for Wales; for Scotland, 11-1; for the islands in the British Seas, 19-6: making the inIcrease for the whole of Great Britain 14 per cent., being less than that of the ten years ending 1831, which was 15 per cent. The number of houses in England is-inhabited, 2,753,295; uninhabited, 162,756; building, 25,882. The number in Wales, inhabited, 188,196; uninhabited, 10,133; building, 1,769. In Scotland, inhabited, 503,357; uninhabited, 24,307; building, 2,760. In the islands of the British Seas, 19,159 inhabited; 865 uninhabited; and 220 building. Grand totals for the whole of Great Britain, 3,464,007 inhabited, 198,061 uninhabited, 30,631 building-altogether, 3,692,679 houses. DESCRIPTION OF ENGLAND. Taɛ ancient kingdom of England, inclusive of Wales, forming geographically the principal division of the island of Great Britain, and politically the chief division of the United Kingdom-the country in which, it is no boast to say, the arts and institutions of social life have made the greatest advance they have ever done in any part of the world-enjoys a situation which has unquestionably tended much to make the country what it is, both politically and socially. The island of which it is the southern and larger portion, is protected from neighbouring countries by a sea of sufficient breadth in most parts, and sufficiently uncertain in its condition, to throw almost insuperable difficulty in the way of an invading force. Placed in a medium latitude, it is further saved by the surrounding ocean from those extremes of heat, cold, England is situated between 50° and 55° 45′ north latitude, and 6° west and 1° 50' east longitude, from Greenwich Observatory. On the north, the only direction in which it is not surrounded by the sea, it is diviced from Scotland by a series of rivers and a chain of mountains. The greatest length, from Lizard Point in Cornwall to Berwick-upon-Tweed, is 400 miles; and the greatest breadth, from St. David's Head in Pembikeshire to the east of Essex, is 300 miles. The area has been variously estimated at 50,387 and 57,960 square miles; it has also been estimated at 37,784,400 acres, of which only about a fourth part is said to be uncultivated. England is divided into fifty-two counties, forty of rich coal-field, one hundred miles in length and from five to ten in breadth, rests upon their southern verge, extending from Glamorgan into Pembrokeshire, being the largest coal-field in Great Britain. The northern range of mountains is also chiefly composed of slate rocks, there being only one mountain of granite near Shap in Westmoreland. Hampshire, Berkshire, Sussex, Surrey, and Kent. Mid- mixture of volcanic rocks, as basalt and trap; while a land Southern Counties-Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire. Midland Northern Counties-Rutlandshire, Leicestershire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire. Eastern Counties Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire. Counties bordering on Wales-Monmouth, Herefordshire, Shropshire, and Cheshire. Northern Counties-Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, York, Durham, and Northumberland. Counties in South Wales-Glamorganshire, Brecknockshire, Caermarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire, and Radnorshire. Counties in North Wales Montgomeryshire, Merionethshire, Flintshire, Denbighshire, Caernarvonshire, and Anglesea. The capital city is LONDON, which is also the metropolis of the United Kingdom. The counties are subdivided into hundreds, wapentakes, tithings, &c., the whole containing 25 cities (inclusive of London), and 172 boroughs. For ecclesiastical purposes, the country is divided into 11,077 parishes; the largest number in any county being 475, in Somersetshire, and the smallest 32, in the county of Westmoreland. Owing to the limited extent and insular position of England, it contains no rivers comparable in magnitude to those of various continental countries. There are, nevertheless, some fine navigable streams, as the Thames, Medway, Humber, and Tyne, on the east side of the island, and the Mersey and Severn on the west side. The Trent, Ouse, Tees, Wear, Dee, Avon, and Derwent, are minor, but not inconsiderable rivers, besides which there are many of inferior importance. England contains no large lakes; but those of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire, though of small size, are celebrated for the picturesque scenery by which they are surrounded. Between these ranges of mountains and a fine drawn from Exmouth, through Bath, Gloucester, Leicester, Nottingham, and Tadcaster, to Stockton-upon-Tees, the surface is composed of the lower secondary strata, including rich beds of coal, the existence of which in this situation is mainly what has enabled England to become the first manufacturing country in the world. The eastern parts of the counties of Durham and Northumberland, from the Tees northward to Berwick, form a peculiarly valuable coal-field, of numerous beds, from which the metropolis and other cities in the east of England and elsewhere are supplied with this important mineral. Another coal-field of great value, and that upon which the manufactures of Manchester depend, extends northwards from Macclesfield to Oldham, and thence westwards to Prescot near Liverpool. A coal-field near Wolver hampton, in Staffordshire, is the most valuable in the centre of England: upon it depend the extensive metallic manufactures of Birmingham. To the east of the line drawn from Exmouth to Bath, and thence by Gloucester, Leicester, and Tadcaster, to Stockton-upon-Tees, we find the upper rocks of the secondary formation, presenting in succession red sandstone and red marl, lias limestone and clay, oolitic lime stone, green sand with clay, and finally chalk. Con nected with the red marl, great strata of rock-salt are found; these are extensively dug in Cheshire and Wor cestershire for domestic use. Lias, which extends from Lyme in Dorsetshire to Whitby in Yorkshire, is remark. able for the remains which it presents of the large saurian reptiles. Beds of oolite limestone, so called from the small egg-like globules contained in it, cover the southern part of Gloucestershire, and a great part of Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Rutlandshire, and the eastern side of Lincolnshire. The Portland stone, so extensively used for building, and which is quarried in the Isle of Portland, belongs to this class of rocks. The chalk exists everywhere to the south-east of a line commencing near Dorchester on the south coast, and passing through Wilts, Berks, Norfolk, and so on to Flamborough Head Wales and the west side of England generally are mountainous. The chief ranges of mountains in this district have been classed under three heads-the Devonian Range, stretching from Somersetshire, through Devon, into Cornwall, and terminating with the promontory of the Land's End; the Cambrian Range, extending from the Bristol Channel through Wales; and the Northern or Cumbrian Runge, stretching from Derbyshire, through Cumberland, and passing into Scotland. None of the individual hills exceed 3000 feet in height, except a few in Wales; the highest being Snowdon in Caernarvonshire (3571 feet). In the central and east--excepting in Sussex and Kent, where it has been carern parts of England (south of Yorkshire), there are a few ill-defined ranges of swelling eminences, but none which reach the altitude of 1000 feet. Besides Snowdon, the principal eminences in England are David (3427 'feet), and Llewellen (3469), both in Wales; Skafell (3166), Skiddaw (3022), and Saddleback (2787), in Cumberland; and Helvellyn (3055), in Westmoreland. The loftiest points in the Devonian range are not more than from 1000 to 1200 feet in height. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE.-SOIL.-CLIMATE. The surface of England includes specimens of the whole extent of the series of rocks, from the primary, which are found in the ranges of mountains on the west, to the lowest of the tertiary, which compose several districts in the south-east; strata intermediate to these divisions being found in succession, in proceeding from the west and north towards the east and south. In Cornwall and Devonshire, eminences of granite, serpentine, and felspar porphyry, occur, while the slopes resting on them are composed of different kinds of slate. The granite of this district is extensively used for paving in London, though considered less hard and durable than that brought from Scotland. The Welsh mountains are romposed chiefly of varieties of slate, with some inter ried off by denudation, exposing a peculiar formation called the wealden, and in the bed of the Thames near London, and one or two other places, where tertiary beds of clay occur. Tin-ore, containing about three parts metal out of four, is found in thick veins or vertical beds in the granite of Cornwall, where it has been wrought since before the conquest of the country by the Romans. Copper-ore is also found extensively in that district, generally in continuation of veins, which, in the upper parts, have been composed of tin-ore; and in several of the same veins, lead, zinc, and antimony are found. A mountain of copper-ore, named Parys Mountain, has long been wrought in the Isle of Anglesea, but is now supposed to be nearly exhausted. Next in importance to coal, as a mineral product, is iron, which is extensively diffused throughout England, though chiefly wrought in the neighbourhood of coal, on account of that fuel being required for smelting it. In 1839, this valuable metal was produced in South Wales to the amount of 380,000 tons. The chief other districts where it is wrought are Staffordshire, Worcestershire, and Yorkshire; the entire produce in that year being a million of tons. In an ac count of the mineral productions of England, it would be improper to overlook its clay, so extensively used ir the manufacture of pottery (chiefly in Staffordshire), and ground in a country where nearly every acre would be in making bricks and tiles for building. The great south-east division of England, in which a comparatively level surface prevails, exhibits a soil which is either chiefly chalky, or chiefly clayey, according to the character of the substratum. Interspersed are a few sandy tracts, of which Bagshot Heath may be cited as an example. In the mountainous districts, the usual light soil resulting from the early rocks prevails, excepting where, in the north, there has been a peaty admixture. Upon the whole, England may be said to possess a large proportion of good and productive soil. Probably not above one-ninth of the entire surface (Wales being included) is unsusceptible of tillage. The climate of England is, as already mentioned, remarkable for its exemption from extremes of heat and cold. It displays an uncommon amount of variation within a narrow range. The average temperature in winter is about 42° of Fahrenheit; in summer, the day temperature is generally about 62°. It is only on rare occasions that the thermometer reaches 80°, or sinks below 20°. The neighbourhood of the sea, which partly accounts for this moderation, is also the cause why the climate of England is more humid than is usual in continental countries of similar latitude. Being inclined to cold and damp, it is more favourable to the growth than to the ripening of vegetable productions. It is certainly not unfavourable to either the physical or moral condition of the people. Perhaps even its uncertainty has been the subject of too much grumbling. On this point we may adduce the cheerful opinion of Charles II., as recorded by Sir William Temple. "I must needs," says Sir William, "add one thing more in favour of our climate, which I heard the king say, and I thought new and right, and truly like a king of England that loved and esteemed his own country: it was in reply to some of the company that were reviling our climate, and extolling those of Italy and Spain, or at least of France. He said he thought that was the best climate where he could be abroad in the air with pleasure, or at least without trouble and inconvenience, the most days of the year, and the most hours of the day; and this he though he could be in England more than in any other country in Europe." Devonshire and some adjacent districts on the southern coast enjoy a temperature which in winter is, at an average, two, three, four, and oven in some instances five degrees above the rest; and these districts are therefore recommended for the residence of persons affected by pulmonary disease. VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS.-ANIMALS. The most conspicuous feature in the botany of England is the fresh and luxuriant herbage, resulting from the humidity of the climate, and which, though apt to be overlooked by the natives from familiarity, never fails to strike the minds of foreigners with surprise. profitable under tillage, conveys a strong impression of the opulence of England. The principal trees are the oak, elm, beech, ash, chestnut, sycamore, poplar, and willow. The vine was at one time extensively cultivated in southern England, but is now seen only in a few detached places. The leading grain in England is wheat; barley, oats, and rye, being in a great measure local to the less favoured districts. The turnip and potato are almost everywhere cultivated; and peas, beans, and clover, are extensively diffused. Hops are produced in the counties of Surrey, Worcester, and Hereford. Hemp, flax, and some other useful productions of the soil, are less conspicuous. The principal fruit-trees are the apple, pear, cherry, and plum; but many others are cultivated under particularly careful circumstances. The English garden produces a great variety of pot-herbs, most of which have been introduced from the continent within the last three centuries. Of the useful animals, England possesses a considerable variety. Her draught-horses are remarkable for their bulk, generally fine condition, and great strength. The race and riding-horse have been improved by the best blood of Arabia and Barbary. There are excellent breeds of both sheep and cattle; and the pig is also an animal in prime condition, and extensively reared. Some of the ancient wild animals, as the wolf, boar, and beaver, are now extinct; and other, as the stag and wild-ox, are very rare. The hare, partridge, and pheasant, are the chief game animals, grouse being only found, and that in small amount, in some of the northern wolds. Most of the smaller quadrupeds, birds, insects, &c., common in the same latitude, are found in England. The nightingale is said to be not heard farther north than Yorkshire. The rivers present trout, perch, &c., and the adjacent seas abound in herring, mackerel, sole, pilchard, and other edible fishes. Agriculture is, in England, in a progressive state but is yet not nearly far advanced as in the better parts of Scotland. Previous to the eighteenth century, no advance had been made from the most simple modes of tillage and Lusbandry. The chief improvements since then are us enumerated in a popular work :-"The gradual introduction of a better system of rotation, since the publication of Tuii's Horsehoeing Husbandry, and other agricultural works, from 1700 to 1750; the improvement of live-stock, commenced by Bakewell about 1760; the raised-drill system of growing turnips, the use of lime, and the convertible husbandry, by Pringle, and more especially by Dawson, about 1765; the improved swing-plough, by Small, about 1790, and the improved thrashing-machine, by Mickle, about 1795. The field culture of the potato, shortly after 1750; the introduc tion of the Swedish turnip, about 1790; of spring wheat, about 1795; of summer wheat, about 1800; and of mangel-wurzel more recently, have, with the introduction of other improved field-plants and improved breeds of animals, contributed to increase the products of agriculture; as the enclosing of common field lands and wastes, and the improvements of mosses and marshes, have contributed to increase the produce and salubrity of the general surface of the country." Mr. McCulloch calculates that twelve millions of acres are cultivated in England as follows: Much of the surface was formerly under wood; but this has for ages been chiefly confined to particular forests, to the neighbourhood of great mansions, and the enclosures of fields. Several large royal forests still exist in England, the most considerable being New Forest in Hampshire (66,912 acres), and Dean Forest in Gloucestershire (23,015 acres). That of Windsor, though famed from its situation and the poetry of Pope, is much smaller, being only 4402 acres. These were anciently the scenes of courtly sport, but are now in part reduced to cultivation, or reserved for the production of timber to be used for the public service. The parks around the seats of the nobility and gentry are a peculiar and most inviting feature of the English landscape. A mixture of green open glades with masses of old well-grown timber, they are scenes of great sylvan beauty; while the existence of so much pleasure-reserved The value of the crops is estimated by the same writer VOL. II.-77 Wheat, Barley and rye, Oats and beans, Clover, Acres 3,800.000 900.006 3,000,000 1,300.000 Roots (turnips, potatoes, &c.), Hops and garden products, Fallow, 1,200.000 150,000 1,650,000 12,000,000 at £72,000,000. He also calculates 17,000,000 acres caused by the breadth of the trunk, and the comparative of pasture-land as producing £59,000,000. ably homogeneous. weakness of the limbs. The broader muscles, therefore, The chief defects of the agricultural system of England of the former, aid progression by a sort of rolling motion, are in the modes of tillage. Cumbrous machinery is throwing forward first one side and then another. * employed to do what might be better done by a lighter The mental faculties of the Englishman are not ansoand cheaper kind: thus, five horses, and even more, are lutely of the highest order; but the absence of passion sometimes seen at one plough, while the heaviest lands gives them relatively a great increase, and leaves a in Scotland require only two. The virtue of draining is mental character equally remarkable for its simplicity scarcely dreamt of in many districts of England, while in and its practical worth. The most striking of those Scotland it is in some places doubling the produce, be- points in English character, which may be called fundasides improving the salubrity of the climate. English mental, are cool observation, unparalleled single-mindedfarmers are too little educated to be ready to adopt im-ness, and patient perseverance. This character is remarkproved modes of agriculture; and, amongst the class of landlords, these have hitherto been too much overlooked.* It seems surprising, yet is quite true, that in one district of the island of Great Britain, expensive and unproductive modes, scarcely in the least better than those which prevailed during the wars of the Roses, will be followed, without the least suspicion that they are wrong, although other districts, which might be reached by a day's journey, present appearances of a reflecting skill and dexterity, the general diffusion of which would be attended with incalculable benefit to both landlords and tenants. It is gratifying, however, to know that this state of things is not likely to last much longer. The English nobility and gentry are now supporting an agricultural association, which is to proceed after the manner of the eminently useful Highland Society of Scotland, in promoting improvements in this important branch of the national industry. We may therefore hope, in another generation, to see the splendid soil of England turned to its full account. THE PEOPLE-THEIR CHARACTER. The constituent elements of the English population are to be traced in the history of the country. The first inhabitants were Britons, probably a mixed Celtic race, and who, during the time of the possession of the country by the Romans, must have been slightly changed by the admixture of that race. Upon a scattered population of Romanized Britons came the great wave of the Saxon invasion, in the fifth and sixth centuries. The Britons are usually said to have been driven to the west; but probably this was not so much the case as has been generally thought, for it is rarely that any invasion expels the mass of a people from the ground they have long occupied. After this, however, the predominant element of English society was undoubtedly Saxon, the Norman conquest only adding to it a French aristocracy, which little affected the great bulk of the population. The English, therefore, exclusive of the Welsh, who are Britons almost unchanged, may be regarded as in the main a Teutonic people, an admixture of British or Celtic entering into the composition always in less and less measure as we advance from Wales towards the eastern coasts, where the people are nearly pure Saxon. According to an acute writer, "the Saxon Englishman is distinguished from other races by a stature rather low, owing chiefly to the neck and limbs being short, by the trunk and vital system being large, and the complexion, irides,† and hair light; and by the face being broad, the forehead large, and the upper and back part of the head round, and rather small. In his walk, the Englishman [understanding by this name the Saxon Englishman] rolls, as it were, on his centre. This is We have been assured that. in some districts, where the stranger is surprised to see the flail still in operation, the farmers and landlords are not unaware of the superiority of the thrashing-machine; but, having only the alternative of supporting the labouring class by this means, or in the condition of paupers, they prefer the former. It is needless to remark, that this is only a misapplication of the powers of the labouring class, which can only tend to increase poverty, and which we may hope to see in time abandoned. Plural of iris, the coloured part of the eye, surrounding the pupil. "The cool observation of the Englishman is the foundation of some other subordinate, but yet important points in his character. One of the most remarkable of these, is that real curiosity, but absence of wonder, which makes the nil admirari a maxim of English society. It is greatly associated, also, with that reserve for which the English are not less remarkable. "The single-mindedness of the Englishman is the foundation of that sincerity and bluntness which are perhaps his chief characteristics; which fit him so well for the business of life, and on which his commercial character depends; which make him hate (if he can hate any thing) all crookedness of procedure, and which alarm him even at the insincerities and compliances of politeness. The perseverance of the Englishman is the founda tion of that habitude which guides so many of his own actions, and that custom in which he participates with all his neighbours. It is this which makes universal cant, as it has been profanely termed, not reasoning, the basis of his morals; and precedent, not justice, the basis of his jurisprudence. But it is this also which, when his rights are outraged, produces that grumbling which, when distinctly heard, effectually protects them; and it is this which creates that public spirit, to which on great emergencies, he rises with all his fellow-cour trymen, and in which he persists until its results astonish even the nations around him. "Now, a little reflection will show, that of the three fundamental qualities I'have mentioned, the first seeming may easily be less amiable than the final result shall be useful. To a stranger of differently constructed mind. the cold observation, and, in particular, the slowness and reserve which must accompany it, may seem unsociable; but they are inseparable from such a construction of mind, and they indicate not pride, but that respect for his feelings which the possessor thinks them entitled to, and which he would not violate in others. The dig nity, therefore, which in this case the Englishman feels, is not hauteur; and he is as rarely insolent to those who are below, as timid to those who are above him. "In regard to the absence of passion from the English mind, it is this which forbids one to be charmed with music, to laugh at comedy, to cry at tragedy, to show any symptom of joy or sorrow in the accidents of real life; which has no accurate notion of grief or wretched ness, and cannot attach any sort of meaning to the word ecstacy; and which, for all these reasons, has a perfect perception of whatever is ridiculous. Hence it is, that in his domestic, his social, and his public relations, it is perhaps less affection than duty that guides the conduct of an Englishman; and, if any one question the moral grandeur which this sentiment may attain, let him call to mind the example of it, which, just before the victory of Trafalgar, was given by Nelson in the simple and sublime communication to his fleet England expects every man to do his duty!' Which is the instance that equals this even in the forged records of Roman glory Happily, too, the excess of hatred is as little known to The word must not here be understood as implying hypocrisy, of which the Saxon temperament is very innocent. |