Notwithstanding that change of place, simply, may have impression to improve the species, yet is it more to circumstances connected with this change, to which the chief part of the improvement must be referred. In the agitation which accompanies emigration, the ablest in mind and body—the most powerful varieties of the race will be thrown into their natural position as leaders, impressing the stamp of their character on the people at large, and constituting the more reproductive part; while the feebler or more improvident varieties will generally sink under the incidental hardships. When a swarm emigrates from a prosperous hive, it also will generally consist of the more adventurous stirring spirits, who, with the right of conquerors, will appropriate the finest of the indigenæ which they overrun; their choice of these being regulated by personal qualities, not by the adventitious circumstances of wealth or high birth—a regard to which certainly tends to deteriorate the species, and is one of the causes which renders the noblesse of Europe comparatively inferior to the Asiatic, or rather the Christian noblesse to the Mahometan. It has been remarked, that our finest, most acute population, exist in the neutral ground, where the Caucasian and Keltic have mixed, but this may arise from other causes than admixture. Our healthiest and poorest country borders the Highlands, and the population enjoy more of the open air. Our eastern population, north of the {374} natural division of Flamboroughead, are also harder and sharper featured, and keener witted, than those southward, who may be styled our fen-bred. There is no doubt more of Keltic blood mingled with the north division; but the sea-born breeds have also been different, those more northerly being Scandinavian, and the more southerly consisting of the native of Lower Germany and the heavy Fleming. The placid-looking Englishman, more under the control of animal enjoyment, though perhaps not so readily acute, excels in the no less valuable qualities of constancy and bodily powers of exertion; and when properly taught under high division of labour, becomes a better operative in his particular employment, and even will sometimes extend scientific discovery further, than his more mercurial northern neighbour, who, from his quick wits being generally in advance of his manual practice, seldom attains to the dexterity which results from the combination of continued bodily action and restricted mental application. There exists, however, very considerable intellectual capacity in this English breed, but it too frequently is crushed under the preponderance of the animal part, affording that purest specimen of vulgarity, the English clown. But, independently of climate and breed, a great part of the low Englander’s obtuseness is referable to his being entailed lord of the soil, under poor-rate law, contravening a natural law (see note B), so that, when