But the absurdity goes further still: for, not satisfied with the bounties of Providence in making us what we are, we must indulge a rancorous disposition towards our neighbours for their less-favoured destiny. “He behaved like a Turk,” is an every-day phrase to indicate a full measure of moral baseness and turpidity. A Frenchman's abuse can go no farther than calling a man a Chinese, and when he says, “_tu es un Pékin_,” a duel is generally the consequence. I doubt not that the Turks and the Chinese make use of retributive justice, and treat us no better than we behave to them. Civilisation would seem rather to have fostered than opposed this prejudice. In the feudal ages, the strength of a brawny right arm, the strong hand that could wield a mace, the firm seat in a saddle, were the qualities most in request; and were physical strength more estimated than the gifts of a higher order, the fine distinctions of national character either did not exist, or were not attended to. Now, however, the tournament is not held on a cloth of gold, but on a broad sheet of paper; the arms are not the lance and the dagger, but the printing-press. No longer a herald in all the splendour of his tabard proclaims the lists, but a fashionable publisher, through the medium of the morning papers, whose cry for largess is to the full as loud. The result is, nations are better known to each other, and, by the unhappy law of humanity, are consequently less esteemed. What signifies the dislike our ancestors bore the French at Cressy or Agincourt compared to the feeling we entertain for them after nigh thirty years of peace? Then, indeed, it was the strong rivalry between two manly natures: now, the accumulated hate of ages is sharpened and embittered by a thousand petty jealousies that have their origin in politics, military glory, society, or literature; and we detest each other like quarterly reviewers. The Frenchman visits England as a Whig commissioner would a Tory institution--only anxious to discover abuses and defects--with an obliquity of vision that sees everything distorted, or a fecundity of imagination that can conjure up the ills he seeks for. He finds us rude, inhospitable, and illiterate; our habits are vulgar, our tastes depraved; our House of Commons is a riotous mob of under-bred debaters; our army an aristocratic _lounge_, where merit has no chance against money; and our literature--God wot!--a plagiarism from the French. The Englishman is nearly as complimentary. The coarseness of French habits is to him a theme of eternal reprobation; the insolence of the men, the indelicacy of the women, the immorality of all, overwhelm him with shame and disgust: the Chamber of Deputies he despises, as a contemptible parody on a representative body, and a speech from the tribune a most absurd substitute for the freedom of unpremeditated eloquence: the army he discovers to be officered by men, to whom the new police are