And yet the system goes on, and the Eton Latin grammar will probably be taught, and hexameters written, for another generation. Surely the needle swings here too strongly towards the negative or obstructive pole. The instances are so numerous in social and practical life in which it is necessary to look at both sides of the shield that the difficulty is in selection. Take the case of patriotism. Patriotism is beyond all doubt a great virtue—in fact, the fertile mother of many of the higher and heroic virtues. Who does not sympathise with the legends of Wallace and William Tell, and scorn with Walter Scott the man with soul so dead Who never to himself has said, This is my own, my native land? And yet how thin a line of partition separates it from narrow-minded arrogance and insolent ignorance! Reflected in the latter form from Paris, in hysterical shouts now of ‘À Berlin, À Berlin!’ and now ‘À bas perfide Albion!’ we call it ‘Chauvinism,’ and recognise it as an unlovely exhibition. But call it ‘Jingoism,’ and let it take the form of the bellowings of some stupid bull, as the red flag, now of a French and now of a Russian scare, crosses his line of vision, and we are blind to its deformity. Still there is another side to the shield, for even ‘Jingoism,’ which is only another word for patriotism run mad, is more respectable than the opposite extreme of a sordid and narrow minded parochialism, which shrinks behind the ‘silver streak,’ measures everything by the standard of pounds, shillings, and pence, and, with what Tennyson calls The craven fear of being great, groans over the responsibilities of extended empire. The growth of such a spirit among prominent politicians of the advanced Liberal school seems to me one of the most alarming symptoms of the day; but I take comfort when I reflect that the most democratic community in the world, that of the United States, is precisely the one which has shown most determination to maintain its national greatness, if necessary by the sword, and has made the greatest sacrifices for that object. If the ‘copperheads’ were a miserable minority in America, why should we be afraid of our ‘English copperheads’ ever becoming a majority in Old England? In this, as in all similar cases, it is evident that true statesmanship consists in hitting the happy mean, and doing the right thing at the right time; and that true strength stands firm in the middle between the two opposite poles, while weakness is drawn by one or other of the conflicting attractions into The falsehood of extremes.