England, mercantile like Carthage, legal like Sparta, is worth more than Sparta and Carthage. She is honoured by this august exception,--a poet. To have given birth to Shakespeare makes England great. Shakespeare's place is among the most sublime in that _élite_ of absolute men of genius which, from time to time increased by some splendid fresh arrival, crowns civilization and illumines with its immense radiancy the human race. Shakespeare is legion. Alone, he forms the counterpoise to our grand French seventeenth century, and almost to the eighteenth. When one arrives in England, the first thing that he looks for is the statue of Shakespeare. He finds the statue of Wellington. Wellington is a general who gained a battle, having chance for his partner. If you insist on seeing Shakespeare's statue you are taken to a place called Westminster, where there are kings,--a crowd of kings: there is also a comer called "Poets' Corner." There, in the shade of four or five magnificent monuments where some royal nobodies shine in marble and bronze, is shown to you on a small pedestal a little figure, and under this little figure, the name, "WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE." In addition to this, statues everywhere; if you wish for statues you may find as many as you can wish. Statue for Charles, statue for Edward, statue for William, statues for three or four Georges, of whom one was an idiot. Statue of the Duke of Richmond at Huntley; statue of Napier at Portsmouth; statue of Father Mathew at Cork; statue of Herbert Ingram, I don't know where. A man has well drilled the riflemen,--he gets a statue; a man has commanded a manœuvre of the Horse Guards,--he gets a statue. Another has been a supporter of the past, has squandered all the wealth of England in paying a coalition of kings against 1789, against democracy, against light, against the ascending movement of the human race,--quick! a pedestal for that; a statue to Mr. Pitt. Another has knowingly fought against truth, in the hope that it might be vanquished, and has found out one fine morning that truth is hard-lived, that it is strong, that it might be intrusted with forming a cabinet, and has then passed abruptly over to its side,--one more pedestal; a statue for Mr. Peel. Everywhere, in every street, in every square, at every step, gigantic notes of admiration in the shape of columns,--a column to the Duke of York, which should really take the form of points of interrogation; a column to Nelson, pointed at by the ghost of Caracciolo; a column to Wellington, already named: columns for everybody. It is sufficient to have played with a sword somewhere. At Guernsey, by the seaside, on a promontory, there is a high column, similar to a lighthouse,--almost a tower; this one is struck by lightning; Æschylus would have contented himself with it. For whom is this?--for General Doyle. Who is General Doyle?--a general. What has this general done?--he has constructed roads. At his