This absence of energy is evident upon the very face of things, and lies at the bottom of whatever slowness of improvement is complained of in Wales. It is the same pest that infests Ireland, only it exists in a minor degree; it is that which did so much harm to the Scottish Highlands at one period of their history; and it is a component cause of many anomalies in the French character, though in this case it is nearly bred out. One of the most striking evidences and effects of it is the dirt and untidiness which is so striking and offensive a peculiarity of Welsh villages and towns--that shabby, neglected state of the houses, streets, and gardens, which forms such a painful contrast the moment you step across the border into the Principality. In this the Welsh do not go to the extremes of the Irish: they are preserved from that depth of degradation by some other and better points of their character; but they approach very closely to the want of cleanliness observable in France--and the look of a Welsh and a French village, nay, the very smell of the two places, is nearly identical. A Welsh peasant, amidst his own mountains, if he can get a shilling a-day, will prefer starving upon that to labouring for another twelvepence. A farmer with £50 a-year rent has no ambition to become one of £200; the shopkeeper goes on in the small-ware line all his life, and dies a pedlar rather than a tradesman. There are brilliant and extraordinary exceptions to all this, we are well aware; nay, there are differences in this respect between the various counties,--and generally the southern parts of Wales are as much in advance of the northern, in point of industry, as they are in point of intellect and agricultural wealth. It is the general characteristic of this nation--and it evidences itself, sometimes most disagreeably, in the want of punctuality, and too often of straightforward dealing, which all who have any commercial or industrial communications--with the lower and middle classes of the Welsh have inevitably experienced. It is the vice of all Celtic nations, and is not to be eradicated except by a cross in the blood. Joined with all this, there is a mean and petty spirit of deceit and concealment too often shown even in the middle classes; and there is also the old Celtic vice of feud and clanship, which tends to divide the nation, and to impede its advancement in civilisation. Thus the old feud between North and South Wales still subsists, rife as ever; the northern man, prejudiced, ignorant, and indolent, comes forth from his mountains and looks down with contempt on the dweller in the southern vales, his superior in all the arts and pursuits of civilised life. Even a difference of colloquial dialects causes a national enmity; and the rough Cymro of Gwynedd still derides the softer man from Gwent and Morganwg. All these minor vices and follies tend to impair the national character--and they