Switzerland has been long celebrated for the mercenary troops she supplied to foreign courts; but there is no country where less is seen of the soldier and his sword; nor can “scanty bread” be said to be the lot of those who cultivate its soil. While our eye is on this part of the poem, can we possibly resist quoting the following half-a-dozen lines? They are perfect:— —“Those ills that round his mansion rise Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms; And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, Clings close and closer to the mother’s breast— So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind’s roar, But bind him to his native mountains more.” Perhaps the happiest of all these national portraits is that of France. He sympathised with the French; his pen is often employed in defending them from absurd attacks, and combating the prejudices of the John Bull of his day. The concluding lines are peculiarly happy: there is a refinement of analysis expressed in the most graceful diction. —“Honour Here passes current; paid from hand to hand, It shifts in splendid traffic through the land; From courts to camps, to cottages it strays, And all are taught an avarice of praise; They please, are pleased; _they give to get esteem_, Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.” His praise of England we must not appear so deficient in patriotism as to quarrel with. But just as one is curious to know where an artist stood who has taken some captivating sketch of an old familiar spot, which never appeared to us so very charming before—so one might feel a little curious to discover where it was, in town or country, that Goldsmith took his stand when he saw— “The lords of human race pass by; Intent on high design—a thoughtful band.” Was it on London Bridge or at Temple Bar that he read the marks of “high design” in the “thoughtful band” that we were rushing past him like a mill-stream? Or was he far off in the country, and did the squire and his tenantry sit for the picture?