eft its impress on the language, and all the literature of the
period wore the _esprit soldatesque_; and so on down to the very days
of the barricades, each changing phase of political life had its
appropriate expression. To assume these with effect, was not of course
the gift of every man, and yet to have erred in their adoption, would
have been palpable to all; here then is one important difference
between us, and on this subject alone I might cite at least twenty
more. The excitable Frenchman scarcely uses any action while speaking,
and that, of the most simple and subdued kind. The phlegmatic
Englishman stamps and gesticulates with all the energy of a madman. We
esteem humour; they prefer wit: we like the long consecutive chain of
proof that leads us step by step to inevitable conviction; they like
better some brief but happy illustration that, dispensing with the
tedium of argument, presents a question at one glance before them.
They have that general knowledge of their country and its changes,
that an illustration from the past is ever an effective weapon of the
orator; while with us the force would be entirely lost from the
necessity of recounting the incident to which reference was made.

A NUT FOR DIPLOMATISTS.

Man is the most imitative of all animals: nothing can surpass the
facility he possesses of simulating his neighbour; and I question much
if the press, in all the plentitude of its power, has done as much for
the spread of good or evil, as the spirit of mimicry so inherent in
mankind. The habits of high life are transmitted through every grade
of society: and the cheesemonger keeps his hunters, and damns his
valet, like my lord; while his wife rolls in her equipage, and affects
the graces of my lady. So long as wealth is present, the assumption of
the tastes and habitudes of a different class, can merely be looked
upon as one of those outbreaks of vanity in which rich but vulgar
people have a right, if they like, to indulge. Why shouldn't they have
a villa at Twickenham--why not a box at the opera--a white bait dinner
at Blackwall--a yacht at Southampton? They have the money to indulge
their caprice, and it is no one's affair but their own. They make
themselves ridiculous, it is true; but the pleasure they experience
counterbalances the ridicule, and they are the best judges on which
side lies the profit. Wealth is power: and although the one may be
squandered, and the other abused, yet in their