1827.] The Four Nations. 475 



of a country where they are not only put, as it were, " more upon their 

 shifts," but where the gratification of the animal appetites bears a much 

 smaller proportion to the means by which it is obtained. He who obtains 

 his turtle and his champagne without an effort, and almost without a 

 wish, may have more gilding and glitter than he who toils the livelong day 

 for his crust of black bread ; but, if we came to " set" them, we should 

 find that the latter were of choicer temper, and could receive a keener 

 edge. 



It may with truth be said, that as property accumulates, the value of 

 man declines ; and in proof of this, I might appeal to the laws of England, 

 which are supposed to be the result of the most polished civilization and 

 the most consummate wisdom ; and yet which, after all, decree a heavier 

 punishment to the stealing forty shillings' value out of a dwelling-house, 

 than they do to the depriving of a man of life, if that be perpetrated in a 

 momentary fit of anger, and without premeditated malice or design. 



The localities of the Four Nations do not possess any remarkable, or, at 

 least, any extreme variation in natural temperature, humidity, or fertility; 

 but still they are different naturally, and the natural difference has been 

 augmented by artificial means. In point of atmosphere, Ireland is per- 

 haps the most humid, because, as an Irishman would say, " the fogs of 

 the Atlantic are perpetually weeping over its woes ;" but, along with this, 

 the annual temperature of Ireland is, upon the whole, the most mild and 

 uniform. In favoured spots, Ireland is probably the most fertile by nature ; 

 but, in consequence of the neglect of cultivation, immense tracks of that 

 country have been converted into bog, and thus have injured both the fertility 

 of the soil and the salubrity of the climate. England, from the comparative 

 absence of mountains and lakes, is the most uniform, and it is, upon the 

 whole, the best or at least the most generally cultivated ; but the eastern 

 parts of England are, in many situations, injured by the miasmata of the 

 fens, and, for certain portions of the year, chilled by the bleak winds and 

 inhospitable fogs which are wafted from the cold and moist regions of the 

 north-east. Wales escapes from these, and, where it is susceptible of 

 cultivation, it is much better cultivated than Ireland ; but a large portion 

 of Wales is mountainous ; and though the air upon these mountains be soft 

 and transparent, it is at the same time humid from the vicinity of tho 

 Atlantic. Scotland, by nature the most bleak and inhospitable of the 

 four, is exposed to a certain portion of fog on the eastern shores ; but as 

 that fog is wafted across a much greater extent of sea, and as the north- 

 oast winds come not over land so humid as those which visit England, the 

 fog does not appear so much to influence the feelings and the character of 

 the people. But still it is found, that, in those portions of Scotland which 

 lie on the eastern shore, and are flat and fertile, there is the same increase 

 of size, relaxation of muscle, and obtuseness of intellect which are found in 

 the flat eastern counties of England; while, in the very extreme wilder- 

 ness of that country, there is an excess of severity which is equally per- 

 nicious to the better powers. These observations are not sufficient for the 

 formation of any thing like a theory ; but they lead us to this one conclu- 

 sion : that the best geographical position for the favourable development 

 of mind is, like that of the best civil position for the same purpose, the one 

 which is neither too high nor too low which is neither parched by cold 

 and drought, nor soaked by heat and humidity. Even although the theory 

 here were perfect, it would not make a great deal for the general question, 

 inasmuch as, though there be greater similarity in the inhabitants of these 



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