gathered together to pronounce upon them; the whole procedure is a subterfuge, and may be easily disparaged by people with other gifts and aspirations. Intelligence certainly does not dominate it; its conclusions, when it reaches conclusions, are false, and its methods cumbrous; and foreigners who adopt them are catching only the vices of their model. But its virtues are transcendent; if the mind of England is wrapped in mists, it is touched with ethereal colours; and who shall measure the benign influences, the lights, the manliness, the comforts, the moral sanity that have spread from it through the world? Its very incapacities are full of promise; it closes no doors; it is the one fountain of kindly liberty on earth. The Englishman's prejudices are so obviously prejudices as to be almost innocent, and even amiable; his consecrated formulas (for of course he has them) are frankly inadequate and half humorous; he would not have you suppose he has said his all, nor his last word. He is jealous of preserving, far from public observation or censure, the free play of his potential sentiments; from thence he will occasionally fetch some scrap of a word, or let slip some hint of emotion; he will only murmur or suggest or smile his loves. Everybody dislikes a caricature of himself; and the Englishman feels (I think justly) that any figure a man can cut in other people's eyes is a caricature. Therefore, if there is anything in him, he fears to betray it; and if there is nothing in him, he fears to betray that; and in either case he is condemned to diffidence and shyness. He wishes you to let him alone; perhaps if you do he may presently tell you, about quite another imaginary person, some vivid and tender story.