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Either they must be dieted, like mules,

And have their provender tied to their mouths,
Or piteous they will look, like drowned mice.

1st part King Henry VI. Act i. Scene 2.

THE FRENCH FICKLE.

Pucelle. Done like a Frenchman; turn, and turn again!

Ibid. Act iii. Scene 3.

K. Henry VI.

Remember where we are;

In France, amongst a fickle, wavering nation.

Ibid. Activ. Scene 1.

THE ENGLISH APING OF FRENCH MANNERS.

Chamberlain. Is it possible the spells of France should juggle

Men into such strange mysteries ?

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Though they be never so ridiculous,

Nay, let them be unmanly, yet are follow'd.

Chamberlain. As far as I see, all the good our English

Have got by the late voyage, is but merely

A fit or two of the face ;* but they are shrewd ones;
For when they hold them, you would swear directly,
Their very noses had been counsellors

To Pepin or Clotharius, they keep state so.

Sands. They have all new legs, and lame ones; one would take it,

That never saw them pace before, the spavin

Or springhalt reign'd among them.

* A grimace or two.

Chamberlain.

Death! my lord,

Their clothes are after such a Pagan cut too,
That sure they have worn out Christendom.

King Henry VIII. Act i. Scene 3.

THE ENGLISH INTEMPERATE.

Iago. I learn'd it* in England, where, (indeed) they are most potent in potting: your Dane, your German, and your Hollander,—Drink, ho !—are nothing to your English.

Cassio. Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking?

Iago. Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane dead drunk; He sweats not to overthrow your Almain; † he gives your Hollander a vomit, ere the next pottle can be fill'd.

Othello. Act ii. Scene 3.

PASSAGES On the manners and customs of nations, occurring incidentally in poetry, are very valuable to the philosopher; as, though they may now and then be tinctured with the prejudices of the people, they are generally free from the suspicion of being dictated by that one-sidedness, so often the sin of the historian. There is much in the preceding extracts that will excite the risible faculties of my countrymen, and not a little, I am sorry to say, that may raise a blush of shame on their countenances.

It alludes to a drinking song.

+ German.

NATURAL DISPOSITIONS.

Belarius. How hard it is, to hide the sparks of nature! These boys know little that they are sons to the king: Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.

They think they are mine: aud, though trained up thus meanly,

I' the cave, wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
The roofs of palaces: and nature prompts them,

In simple and low things, to prince it, much

Beyond the trick of others,

Cymbeline. Act iii. Scene 3.

"How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!" Truehow impossible! Yet as there is no theory so absurd, or so opposed to facts of common observation, as not to find some learned supporters, even this notorious truth has been denied and many metaphysicians, (Helvetius amongst the number) have propounded the monstrous doctrinemonstrous as opposed to the experience of human life in all ages" that there is no such a thing as innate genius, or natural talent; but that it is produced solely by favourable influences of association and cultivation, principally in child

hood." As well might they say that favourable influences of nursing and exercise will in time convert a born-blind cripple into a Hercules or Adonis !

But there are a set of philosophers who understand not the system of Lord Bacon and of good sense, and will build up their preposterous theories upon words as a substitute for realities. It is hardly credible that men with the slightest pretensions to any knowledge of human nature, or the history of mankind, should altogether omit to consider how some of the greatest characters that ever lived have raised themselves to greatness in spite of the most unfavourable influences and want of education in early life! the very force of their genius bursting through all restraints opposed to its development!

I should be the last man in the world to undervalue education and cultivation of talent where it already exists, and am ready to admit their power of improving and extending such talent-and more than this, I am willing to confess, that in the absence of original genius, education, to a certain though limited extent, may form some sort of a substitute, (for which man has reason to be thankful;) but I maintain that the notion of all minds being born alike is one of the most ridiculous freaks, out of many, that mental philosophers have ever been guilty of.

The great John Locke has been claimed by Helvetius as an authority in favour of his doctrine. It appears to me an unjust claim, and I should be sorry if it were not so. Briefly, the difference between Locke and Helvetius may be thus stated: Locke says, "Assuming by way of hypothesis that the original faculties are equal, then the different results in the acquirements of those faculties may be accounted for by the difference in early association and education." Helvetius says, "The original faculties are equal, but different results must arise from the necessary difference in early association and education." Here is an obvious difference. Locke, it is true, argues that "all ideas arise from external impressions on the senses: " but

this argument does not go so far back as to deny an inequality in the original power of receiving those impressions. Locke, in fact, does not go into that point, and upon that point the whole question hinges. To show that I am not without reason in defending Mr. Locke from the unenviable distinction of being claimed as an authority for the Helvetian philosophy, I will add a passage, verbatim, from his great work,* wherein he is treating of memory, and which plainly confirms my notion, that he did not positively deny an original disparity in the natural constitution of the mind. He says:

"How much the constitution of our bodies, and the make of our animal spirits are concerned in this,-whether the temper of the brain make this difference, that in some it retains the characters drawn on it. like marble; in others, like freestone; and in others, little better than sand; I shall not now inquire: though it may seem probable that the constitution of the body does sometimes influence the memory," &c.

After reading this passage, it seems to us that so far from going the lengths of Helvetius, Locke had a slight tendency the other way; and it is even possible, if he had lived in our days, that he would have been a Phrenologist. "Temper of the brain!" aye, forsooth, people had taken little trouble to inquire what the brain was in those days! As a friend of mine once observed, they looked on the skull and its contents in a very undignified manner, as if it were filled with a confused mass of stuff something like what the Scotch call" crowdie."

* "Essay on the Human Understanding."

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