“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”--SHAKESPEARE. HOUSEHOLD WORDS. A WEEKLY JOURNAL. CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. N^o. 26.] SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._ TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREIGNERS’ PORTRAITS OF ENGLISHMEN. 2 THE STEAM PLOUGH. 8 A SACRED GROVE. 15 “CAPE” SKETCHES. 15 “BATTLE WITH LIFE!” 22 SPY POLICE. 22 CHIPS. 28 TWO CHAPTERS ON BANK NOTE FORGERIES. 31 FOREIGNERS’ PORTRAITS OF ENGLISHMEN. The extraordinary being, conjured up in the minds of most foreigners under the generic term Englishman, seems to be something more uncommon than the veracious Gulliver ever encountered, and more heterogeneous than John Bulwer in his _Artificiall Changeling_ pourtrayed. As a Spanish _olla podrida_ and a Devonshire squab-pie are said to be made up of all the contradictory edibles that can be conceivably assembled in one dish; so is the hash, cooked up by the French or German novelist and dramatist to represent a true born Briton, an incarnation of every unlikely extravagance it is possible to assemble in one character. The true expression of what is popularly believed of us abroad is not to be found so distinctly set forth in novels, as in plays. The novelist is restricted in a measure within the not narrow bounds of probability; but the dramatist may first revel at will in the rankest breadths of impossible absurdity; and then the actor may intensify the enormity by dress, gait, and unmeasured foolery. The amount of instruction on the manners, habits, feelings, modes of expression, gesture, dress, and general demeanour of his compatriots which an Englishman may glean in some of the foreign Theatres, when an Englishman is being represented on the stage, is perfectly astounding. We have in this way become acquainted with English characteristics of which the most comically inclined maniac could never dream after the most dyspeptic of suppers.