s returning by the north road to an antiquated
mansion in Yorkshire? The pace, to be sure, is not so fast--but it
compensates in safety what it loses in speed--the assemblage around is
not so numerous, or the excitement so great; but filial tenderness is
a nobler motive than the acclamations of a mob. In fact, the parallel
presents all the advantages on one side: and the jockey is as inferior
to the postillion as the fitful glare of an _ignis-fatuus_ is to the
steady brilliancy of a gas-lamp.

An Englishman has a natural pride in the navy of his country--our
wooden walls are a glorious boast; but, perhaps, after all, there is
nothing more captivating in the whole detail of the service, than the
fact that even the highest and the noblest in the land has no royal
road to its promotion, but, beginning at the very humblest step, he
must work his way through every grade and every rank, like his
comrades around him. Many there are now living who remember Prince
William, as he was called--late William the Fourth, of glorious
memory--sitting in the stern seats of a gig, his worn jacket and
weather-beaten hat attesting that even the son of a king had no
immunity from the hardships of the sea. This is a proud thought for
Englishmen, and well suited to gratify their inherent loyalty and
their sturdy independence. Now, might we not advantageously extend the
influence of such examples, by the suggestion I have thrown out above?
If a foreigner be now struck by hearing, as he walks through the
dockyard at Plymouth, that the little middy who touches his hat with
such obsequious politeness, is the Marquis of ----, or the Earl of
----, with some fifty thousand per annum, how much more astonished
will he be on learning that he owes the rapidity with which he
traversed the last stage to his having been driven by Lord Wilton--or
that the lengthy proportions, so dexterously gathered up in the
saddle, belong to an ex-ambassador from St. Petersburgh. How surprised
would he feel, too, that instead of the low habits and coarse tastes
he would look for in that condition in life, he would now see elegant
and accomplished gentlemen, sipping a glass of curacoa at the end of a
stage; or, mayhap, offering a pinch of snuff from a box worth five
hundred guineas. What a fascinating conception would he form of our
country from such examples as this! and how insensibly would not only
the polished taste and the high-bred depravity of the better classes
be