‘No little lily-handed Baronet he, A great broad-shouldered genial Englishman, A lord of fat prize oxen and of sheep, A raiser of huge melons and of pine, A patron of some thirty charities, A pamphleteer on guano and on grain, A quarter sessions chairman, abler none.’ Whose company so soporific? His talk is of truisms and bullocks; his head replete with rustic visions of mutton and turnips, and a cerebral edition of Burn’s ‘Justice!’ Notwithstanding, he is the salt of the earth, the best of the English breed. Who is like him for sound sense? But I must restrain my enthusiasm. You don’t want me to tell you that a Frenchman—a real Frenchman—can’t be stupid; _esprit_ is his essence, wit is to him as water, _bons-mots_ as _bonbons_. He reads and he learns by reading; levity and literature are essentially his line. Observe the consequence. The outbreak of 1848 was accepted in every province in France; the decrees of the Parisian mob were received and registered in all the municipalities of a hundred cities; the Revolution ran like the fluid of the telegraph down the _Chemin de fer du Nord_; it stopped at the Belgian frontier. Once brought into contact with the dull phlegm of the stupid Fleming, the poison was powerless. You remember what the Norman butler said to Wilkin Flammock, of the fulling mills, at the castle of the Garde Douloureuse: ‘that draught which will but warm your Flemish hearts, will put wildfire into Norman brains; and what may only encourage your countrymen to man the walls, will make ours fly over the battlements.’ _Les braves Belges_, I make no doubt, were quite pleased to observe what folly was being exhibited by those very clever French, whose tongue they want to speak, and whose literature they try to imitate. In fact, what we opprobriously call stupidity, though not an enlivening quality in common society, is nature’s favourite resource for preserving steadiness of conduct and consistency of opinion. It enforces concentration; people who learn slowly, learn only what they must. The best security for people’s doing their duty is, that they should not know anything else to do; the best security for fixedness of opinion is, that people should be incapable of comprehending what is to be said on the other side. These valuable truths are no discoveries of mine. They are familiar enough to people whose business it is to know them. Hear what a dense and aged attorney says of your peculiarly promising barrister:—‘Sharp! oh yes, yes! he’s too sharp by half. He is not _safe_; not a minute, isn’t that young man.’ ‘What style, sir,’ asked of an East India Director some youthful aspirant for literary renown, ‘is most to be preferred in the composition of official despatches?’ ‘My good fellow,’ responded the ruler of Hindostan, ‘the style _as we_ like is the Humdrum.’ I extend this, and advisedly maintain that nations, just as individuals, may be too clever to be practical, and not dull enough to be free.