In England and France a sharper distinction is established. In both these countries it is clearly understood that the English are people of one nationality and the French of another. When, however, we pass from the nations considered only as two great masses, and try to find what each knows of the other in detail, we discover the existence of a quiet conviction that there is no variety in the human species on the opposite side of the Channel. Each nation is well aware that there is now, and always has been in past times, an infinite variety of character within its own borders, but it fails to imagine that a like variety can exist in a foreign country. Not only is this inability common amongst those who have travelled little and read little; it may also be found in writers of eminence, who frequently fall into the error of describing the inhabitants of a foreign country as if they were all alike, especially when the description is intended to be unfavourable. [Sidenote: Causes of Internal Difference.] I propose to point out a few of the chief causes of internal difference which act both in England and France. The first and most obvious is that neither of the two nations is homogeneous. They are formed by the joining together of old nations, they have not grown as single nations from the first. [Sidenote: _La Grande Bretagne._] [Sidenote: The Scotch Highlanders.] [Sidenote: Their Inertia.] [Sidenote: Lack of Enterprise.] [Sidenote: Highlanders naturally Gentlemen.] The power which acts politically in Europe, and which is called _l’Angleterre_ or _la Grande Bretagne_ in diplomatic correspondence, is composed of four distinct nationalities. If we take one of these, the most northerly, we find that it is inhabited by two distinct races, the Highlanders and Lowlanders. They are spoken of equally as Scotch, yet the difference is not less marked, in reality, than if they were separate nations. The Highlanders still retain, or did retain when I knew them, many of the characteristics of a social state from which the Lowlanders have long since emerged. They were noble rather than industrial in their tastes and instincts, disposed for field sports rather than for the improvement of their condition by labour. Dr. Macculloch’s description of their inertia at the beginning of the century was still applicable. The people did not move, of themselves, towards a better condition; they had not the spirit of improvement. They were surrounded, it is true, by natural circumstances of some difficulty, especially those caused by the severity of their climate, but they were far from making the most of such opportunities as they possessed. For example, in gardening, they did not grow, and they could not be induced to grow, the vegetables which the climate allows, even although the want of them brought on scurvy. Their habitations were wanting in every comfort, being almost in the lowest stage of cottage-building, irregular walls of rude stone, with a small hole