It is to be especially noted with commendation that the Mexicans have recently become the severest critics not only of their institutions but of themselves. The miserable, boasting spirit,--the taste for grandiloquent proclamations,--the indiscriminate laudation of Mexican virtue, talent, science, honor, valor, and justice, which filled the papers and pamphlets of the nation, but which were never sustained when the Mexicans came in contact either with highly cultivated foreigners or were opposed by foreign arms, have all been greatly qualified since the war. The combined lessons of her unsparing but truthful satirists and of her invading enemies, will not be lost on a people really sensible and sensitive, though bewildered for more than a quarter of a century during which bombast served for glory or consolation when anarchy was not altogether triumphant. In confirmation of this growing spirit of self-examination with a view to national reform, we would also refer to the discreet and able memoir of Don Luis G. Cuevas, minister of foreign and domestic relations, read by him before the Chamber of Deputies, on the 5th of January, 1849. CHAPTER XIII. REFLECTIONS UPON THE REPUBLIC. WHAT MEXICO HAS DONE--REVIEW OF HER CONDUCT AND CHARACTER.--MEXICAN OPINIONS--CLASSES--INDIANS--MESTIZOS--WHITES--ARMY--CHURCH.--DIVISIONS OF WHITES--WANT OF HOMOGENEOUSNESS.--WANT OF NATIONALITY AND OF A PEOPLE--REMEDIES--EMIGRATION--RELIGIOUS LIBERTY--POLITICAL ORDER--LABOR.