the air-pump, the Spaniards sleep there, the Russians wind the upper part of their bodies like puppets, and the German alone sits still like a man--man and horse are one as with the Hungarians. The royal oak, the favourite tree of our fathers, requires centuries for its full developement, and so long do we also require. The oak is a fairer symbol of the German nation than the German postboy, from which original most foreigners appear to judge of us. A postilion in the north, however, is the true representative of Phlegma. Bad or good roads, bad or good weather, bad or good horses and coach, curses or flattery from the traveller--nothing moves him if his pipe-stump be but smoking, and his schnaps paid. The hereditary enemy of our neighbours is levity, ours heaviness. In the ancient bass-fiddle, Europe, the thickest string is the German, with deep tone and heavy vibration; but once in vibration, it hums as if it would go on humming for an eternity. Our primitive ancestors deliberated on every thing twice--in drunkenness, and in sobriety; and then they acted. But we, with the most honest and slowest spirit of order--which might, without danger, be spared many _reglemens_--we lost all elasticity, and sank dismembered into a stupid spirit of slavery, which originated in our passion for imitation, our faintheartedness, and our uncommonly low opinion of ourselves, which often looks like true dog humility. This humility the French have in view, when if naughtily treated by their superiors, by the police, &c., they cry out "Est ce qu'on me prend pour un Allemand?" The Englishman is fond of being represented as a John Bull, but John Bull pushes about him. We, however, are personified by the German _Michel_, who puts up with a touch on the posterior, and still asks, "What's your pleasure?" Voltaire sang of the Marechal de Saxe:-- "Et ce fier Saxon que lion _croit nè parmè nous_," exactly like a Maitre d'Hôtel, who, whenever he wished to flatter me, used to say, "Vous savez, Monsieur, je vous regarde _presque_ comme Français." Voltaire was not ashamed at Berlin, when the Prussian soldiers did not enact the Roman legions to his mind, to exclaim in the midst of German princesses, "F----j'ai demandé des hommes, et on me donne des Allemands!" Marechal Schomberg, to whom the impertinent steward, on committing a fault, said, "Parbleu, on me prendra pour un Allemand!" would long ago have set them to rights with his answer, "On a tort, on devrait vous prendra pour un sot!"