It is the same with us in love and literature. An Englishman makes love without thinking of the chances of success, his own disadvantages, or the character of his mistress—that is, without the adaptation of means to ends, consulting only his own humour or fancy;[39] and he writes a book of history or travels, without acquainting himself with geography, or appealing to documents or dates; substituting his own will or opinion in the room of these technical helps or hindrances, as he considers them. It is not right. In business it is not by any means the same; which looks as if, where interest was the moving principle, and acted as a counterpoise to caprice and will, our headstrong propensity gave way, though it sometimes leads us into extravagant and ruinous speculations. Nor is it a disadvantage to us in war; for there the spirit of contradiction does every thing, and an Englishman will go to the devil sooner than yield to any odds. Courage is nothing but will, defying consequences; and this the English have in perfection. Burns somewhere calls out lustily, inspired by rhyme and _usquebaugh_,— ‘Set but a Scotsman on a hill; Say such is royal George’s will, And there’s the foe:- His only thought is how to kill Twa at a blow.’ I apprehend, with his own countrymen or ours, all the love and loyalty would come to little, but for their hatred of the army opposed to them. It is the resistance, ‘the two to kill at a blow,’ that is the charm, and makes our fingers’-ends tingle. The Greek cause makes no progress with us for this reason: it is one of pure sympathy, but our sympathies must arise out of our antipathies; they were devoted to the Queen to spite the King. We had a wonderful affection for the Spaniards—the secret of which was that we detested the French. Our love must begin with hate. It is so far well that the French are opposed to us in almost every way; for the spirit of contradiction alone to foreign fopperies and absurdities keeps us within some bounds of decency and order. When an English lady of quality introduces a favourite by saying, ‘This is his lordship’s physician, and my atheist,’ the humour might become epidemic; but we can stop it at once by saying, ‘That is so like a Frenchwoman!’—The English excel in the practical and mechanic arts, where mere plodding and industry are expected and required; but they do not combine business and pleasure well together. Thus, in the Fine Arts, which unite the mechanical with the sentimental, they will probably never succeed; for the one spoils and diverts them from the other. An Englishman can attend but to one thing at a time. He hates music at dinner. He can go through any labour or pain with prodigious fortitude; but he cannot make a pleasure of it, or persuade himself he is doing a _fine thing_, when he is not. Again, they are great in original