1827.] [ 473 ] 



THE FOUR NATIONS: 



No. II. 

 *' Quatuor homines quatuor charts. :) 



All lead, I grant, is still in essence lead, 

 However it be moulded ; but the mould 

 Determines both the comeliness and value : 

 As, what cast one way is a nameless vessel. 

 Moulded another, might be Hercules. 

 E'en so with men : the peasant or the savage, 

 By different training, doubtless might have been 

 A man o' the woods, or wise philosopher. 

 The worth, in all that nature lends, consists 

 Not so much in the substance as the use. 



GODOLPHIN. 



HAVING, in a former paper, delineated a few of the more striking and 

 simple features in the character of each of the Four Nations composing the 

 British public, as that character is found not in individual instances in 

 the very noblest or the very meanest but on the average, and in the gross ; 

 or, having, as some will perhaps rather be inclined to think, made a slight, 

 but by no means a wanton incision through the epidermis it may be, for 

 the purpose of ascertaining the national malady, it now remains to con- 

 sider the more important, because the more practical and manageable, 

 question of what influence the circumstances of each nation may have had, 

 and may still have, in giving to the features of its character those pecu- 

 liarities which have been described. This is a subject of great extent arid 

 difficulty, as well as importance ; and it is one, in the consideration of 

 which no man perhaps can escape the bias and prejudice which his own 

 peculiar circumstances have stamped upon himself; and, therefore, though 

 it demands to be treated with boldness and decision, it ought not to be 

 done with dogmatism, or received with offence inasmuch as the perform- 

 ance of it is labour, and the object cure. 



In order that I may be the more perspicuous if, indeed, perspicuity can 

 be predicated of such an inquiry I shall arrange my few remarks, and 

 deductions from those remarks, under the several heads of Geographical 

 Situat ion Original Race Education Employment Soc ial Hab its 

 Political Condition Intellectual State and Prcvailings Opinion. Even 

 this enumeration does not comprehend the whole, and there are several 

 parts of it which can hardly be separated from others ; but still there is no 

 possibility of understanding the mechanism of the living body, whether 

 physical or politic, without an ideal dissection, inasmuch as the common 

 analogy of anatomy will not apply; for, though an examination of the 

 parts of a human body which is deprived of life makes us acquainted with 

 the functions of those in which life still exists, the dissection of a dead 

 community throws not much light upon the nature of a living one, and 

 none at all upon that which is the object of this inquiry the peculiarities 

 which belong to it, and to it only. 



GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION. There can be no question that much of 

 the external appearance, and more of the modes of feeling and thinking, 

 depend upon the nature of the earth upon which man is placed, and the 

 atmosphere which he breathes. For in those central regions of the world, 

 where the bud, the blossom, and the fruit are together and constantly upon 

 the tree where there is but little change of temperature where oven 

 slight clothing is a burden where the shelter of massy walls is not required, 



M.M. New Series. VoL.III. No. 17.. ,'$ P 



