finish the whole at once, and as this is not possible, he always leaves his work in an imperfect state, or as if he had begun on a new canvas—like a man who is determined to leap to the top of a tower, instead of scaling it step by step, and who is necessarily thrown on his back every time he repeats the experiment. Again, the French student does not, from a childish impatience, when he is near the end, destroy the effect of the whole, by leaving some one part eminently deficient, an eye-sore to the rest; nor does he fly from what he is about, to any thing else that happens to catch his eye, neglecting the one and spoiling the other. He is, in our old poet’s phrase, ‘constrained by mastery,’ by the mastery of common sense and pleasurable feeling. He is in no hurry to get to the end; for he has a satisfaction in the work, and touches and retouches perhaps a single head, day after day and week after week, without repining, uneasiness, or apparent progress. The very lightness and buoyancy of his feeling renders him (where the necessity of this is pointed out) patient and laborious. An Englishman, whatever he undertakes, is as if he was carrying a heavy load that oppresses both his body and mind, and that he is anxious to throw down as soon as possible. The Frenchman’s hopes and fears are not excited to a pitch of intolerable agony, so that he is compelled, in mere compassion to himself, to bring the question to a speedy issue, even to the loss of his object. He is calm, easy, collected, and takes his time and improves his advantages as they occur, with vigilance and alacrity. Pleased with himself, he is pleased with whatever occupies his attention nearly alike. He is never taken at a disadvantage. Whether he paints an angel or a joint-stool, it is much the same to him: whether it is landscape or history, still it is he who paints it. Nothing puts him out of his way, for nothing puts him out of conceit with himself. This self-complacency forms an admirable ground-work for moderation and docility in certain particulars, though not in others.