In the works of our own countrymen we have frequent opportunities of making this comparison, as the originals are generally before us: But when we read the productions of foreigners, as their portraits are copied from manners with which we are not sufficiently acquainted, they must often appear forced and unnatural. There is a cast of humour, as well as of manners, peculiar to each country; and this is what makes every nation give the preference to its own humorous subjects. Nor is this preference ill founded, since the several drawings are made from originals widely different from each other; and as in portrait-painting, the value of the picture is enhanced by our connections with the person who sat for it; so here we must approve those pieces the originals of which we are best acquainted with. The language of humour is also in every country different from that used upon common occasions, which makes foreign satire an exotic of too delicate a nature to bear transplanting. I was not surprised at my friend's situation; nothing I _then_ supposed could have secured my own heart from her attractions but its being pre-engaged. All the great heroes, the scripture worthies in particular, have had their _Delilah's_, to whose bewitching charms they have _one and all yielded_; reluctantly some, and fondly others; _these_ proving their wisdom, and _those_ their folly; since _there is no enchantment against beauty_, nor any thing it cannot enchant.