The Helvetian can hardly be more enamoured of his mountains than is the Hollander of his alluvial plains! But whence this coincidence? Is it that the Dutchman remembers the _high descent_ of his native soil—that it floated down from the Alps and other highlands—that it was redeemed from the ocean by his labour and skill—enriched, fertilized, and adorned by the industry of his forefathers—and, finally, that it had become, under his fostering care, a second “Garden of Eden,” the pride of Batavians, and the envy of the world? Or is it that extremes approximate?—That the hardy Helvetian, raised above the storm’s career, but whose— “Rocks by custom turn to beds of down,” can look, with feelings of pride and independence, from his airy citadel of health and activity, down on surrounding nations—whilst the phlegmatic Hollander, secure from winds and waves, under the shelter of his break-water ramparts, surveys with kindred feelings and self-gratulations his fertile flats, his irrigated fields, and commerce-bearing canals—his senses steeped in that musing mood, that “fool’s paradise” suspended midway between the excitement of gin, and the tranquillity of tobacco? Be this as it may, there can be little doubt that the moral and physical character—the inward temperament and outward man—are all very much modified by the climate, the soil, and the circumstances around us. It might not be difficult to shew that the prominent characteristics of the people in question are modified by these external agencies. The Hollander is accustomed to watch, with the patience of a cat, for that precise period when the alluvial deposits on his shores have attained that level which permits him to stretch out his mounds of earth, and grasp the piece of newly-emerged ground for future culture:—hence his _patience_ and _vigilance_ through life, while watching the opportunity of benefiting himself. He observes, from infancy, the labour and expense of realizing this property in the soil:—hence his ECONOMY, even to parsimony. His climate is damp and cold: his temperament is therefore PHLEGMATIC. The surface of his country is flat and monotonous; without monuments of antiquity, historical renown, or classical recollections:—there is, consequently, no more POETRY in his composition than in a Dutch cheese, or a stagnant canal. Living beneath the level of the ocean, he is liable to inundations from the watery element:—he is therefore habitually CAUTIOUS of all contingencies. The equinoxes, the vernal and autumnal floods, the changes of the moon, are all important epochs and events in a submarine territory;—he is, therefore, a CALCULATING animal, from his cradle to his grave. At war with the elements, he is naturally BRAVE even to obstinacy, whether the cause be right or wrong; and will fight to the knees in blood, rather than either advance or retreat. Monotony being almost universal, ideality is nearly null:—the