The following are points of comparison which may be remarked in the characters of the French and English. The French are great talkers, the English great thinkers; the former excel in vivacity, the latter in solidity of intellect. The French dress with splendour, the English with neatness; the French live almost exclusively on bread, the English on meat. Both are passionate; but it is the blood which rouses the passion of a Frenchman, and the bile which exasperates an Englishman. The anger of a Frenchman is more violent, that of an Englishman more pertinacious. A Frenchman spends his money on his clothes, an Englishman on his belly. A Frenchman follows the stream, an Englishman delights in struggling against it. The friendships of the French are quickly formed, and as quickly dissolved; those of the English are formed slowly, and as slowly relinquished. The French respect their superiors, the English respect themselves; the former are better citizens, the latter better men. The mental endowments of the French are of a more refined, those of the English of a loftier, character. The French practise virtue for the sake of reputation, and seek the reward of meritorious actions in popular applause; the English practise it for its own sake, and seek no reward but that which springs from the consciousness of rectitude. There is the same relative difference in their vices as in their virtues. Both commit crimes; the French from the love of gain, the desire of vengeance or similar motives; but the English are often criminal for the mere sake of committing crime. The French, like the people of other countries, often commit crimes in the hope of escaping punishment, but the English frequently commit crimes because they know they cannot escape unpunished; so that the very severity of the law, which deters others from crime, often operates as an additional stimulus on the English for the commission of offences, "I would commit this offence," exclaims the Frenchman, "if the law permitted it." "I would not commit this offence, if it were not prohibited by law," is frequently the language of the Englishman.--_Memoirs of Lewis Holberg_. * * * * * LEAVES AND FLOWERS, OR THE LOVER'S WREATH. With tender vine-leaves wreathe thy brow, And I shall fancy that I see, In the bright eye that laughs below, The dark grape on its parent tree. 'Tis but a whim--but, oh! entwine Thy brow with this green wreath of mine. Weave of the clover-leaves a wreath, Fresh sparkling with a summer-shower, And I shall, in my fair one's breath, Find the soft fragrance of the flower. 'Tis but a whim--but, oh! do thou Twine the dark leaves around thy brow.