288 The Four Nations. [MARCH, 



the firmament the blue vacuity, as it were of simple voters, by con- 

 trast with whom those stars are made to shine ; because, what Pope says 

 ironically of the fair sex, may be said of them without much irony most 

 of them have no character at all. To get at the real character, one must 

 take a bustling member who loves to hear himself talk, and who lays claim 

 to occasional or habitual independence. 



Taking such, the substrata of the three (omitting the Principality) are, 

 freedom or business on the part of the Englishman, economy on the part 

 of the Scot, and Ireland on the part of the Irishman. The Englishman's 

 speech proceeds chiefly upon matters of fact, keeps to the single point at 

 issue, and though it often be cold and shallow, it is always clear. He has 

 one aim, and one way of arriving at that. Be his deportment what it may 

 among the varied subjects which come before the legislature, he keeps him- 

 self to it ; and if you have heard him once, you have no great difficulty in 

 predicting what he shall say upon another occasion. The disposition to 

 keep his own ground and to respect that of others, is apparent in every 

 thing that he says ; his propositions are very often mere truisms ; he is occa- 

 sionally mistaken in his facts ; and, in the less fortunate specimens, there 

 is a very obvious want of logical concatenation, though an abundance of 

 common sense runs through the whole, and all tends directly to practical 

 usefulness. 



The Scottish speechman goes to work in quite another manner. He 

 tries every subject, whether he happens to understand it or not, and so 

 mixes together an attempt to be acute and plausible, with lame, lengthy, 

 and lumbering execution, that he invariably leaves the subject darker 

 than he finds it. Instead of proceeding upon tacts like the Englishman, he 

 invariably proceeds by hypothesis, and that hypothesis is generally so very 

 wide and vague, that h e really produces less effect than an Englishman of 

 inferior powers. Amid all his apparent caution, too, there is a much 

 greater admixture of passion than in the Southern, and, if he does not suc- 

 ceed in exciting his audience very strongly, he cannot speak for any length 

 of time without having excited himself. 



The Irishman wants the facts of the Englishman and the hypothesis of 

 the Scot, and you require to listen for a long time before you can find out 

 what he would be at. If the debate happens to be respecting Ireland, the 

 chance is that party-feeling shall prevent him from seeing where the real 

 gist of it lies; and if it be not about Ireland, then Ireland is sure to come 

 in and dismiss the other subject whatever it may be. At a general glance 

 one would say that, in St. Stephen's, the Englishman appears a native, the 

 Scotsman an alien, and the Irishman an enemy. 



These characteristics, which have been taken without any directly 

 private or personal application, have only to be received according to place 

 and profession, and they will serve for all classes of society. The English- 

 man is detached both in his habits of life, and his modes of thinking ; and 

 this, though it makes him appear a cold neighbour and rather an indifferent 

 friend, is yet the very quality which has placed Englishmen foremost in 

 knowledge, in the arts, and in personal comforts and engagements. In as 

 far as mechanical talent and mere industry are concerned, the Cambrian 

 bears a considerable resemblance to the Englishman ; .but his mental 

 powers are less elevated in kind, and more confined in range, which a strong 

 bias of credulity, or rather perhaps of superstition, clashed with much ardour 

 and shortness of temper, form the real characteristic of his race. The Scots- 

 man, superficially acquainted with a greater range of subjects, and also 



