The National Register.
London, England, 1816-09-02 00:00:00

- fTitt

No. 447.—V0L. IX.

P0L1776'.11. DIMIL'IsITIO

OR4ERVATIONS OF AN ENGLISHM ON ME
TIONALCIUXHACTER—FoLITicALcoNsTrru
--LlTEfutity, PHILDsOPHICA 1., AND MORAL CUL-
TIVATION OF HIS COUNTRYMEN.
THE mind of an Englishman is sedate, and content-
plative;—it examines objects with calmness, yet with
vigour:—it investievates,—it ascertains,—it appreciates
their positive, and comparative excellence;—and, when
it has arranged the station which they hold, and the
portion of attention which they merit,—it entbraets
them with warmth, and pursues theta with undeviating
resolution, and zeal.
This calm, this vigorous, and persevering character-
istic of Britons, is displayed in the varied walks of
literary, political, commercial, and military life:—uud,
on this basis, is founded the high fame, which they sup-
part among the Nations of the earth.
To the eye of the philosopher, similar phenomena arc
ever obvious in national, as in individual character.—
An individual, distingnishel by the qualities, thus
slightly stated, soon becomes familiar with the nature
and properties of the objects which elicit his. regards,— I
whether those objects lie in the scenes of active, or con-
templative life. When circumstances fix him in the
hustle of the world, and present no insuperable barrier
to his peculiar designation, he becomes, in one direction
of events, the heroic Captain,—the pride,—the stay,—
the glory of his country !—Or, in a more limited field
of exertion, the skilful artizan,—the 'patient agricul-
turist,—the enterprizing mariner,—the intelligent mer- •
chant,—the learned divine,—the acute lawyer,—the
physician,—and the enlightened magistrate,
legislator, and politician.
The combination, and general prevalence, of such in-
dividuals in a state, tima the natiunal character of that
state:—they constitute its airength,—its
.fiemr,—its nail
of defiatce against aNsailieg jimr,—and its shield of /ma-
/whoa to the potrerlers and the uppressed. They etimpel
even rival states to a half-smothered admiration, and
acknowledgment of pre-eminence,—and spread be:ltre
the historian and the poet, the favoured topics, on which
their genius and their talents delight to dwell.
The man, whom nature has blessed with a strong
and vigorous pereeption,—whom she lets endowed with
the I:Lenity of receiving the fullest impressions front all
external objects,—together with a judgment, capable of
assigning to those objects their due arrangement and
imitortance,—who, by educatit et,—by habits of science,—
and by long reflection,—has matured these rich gifts,
will secure a pleasure which never cloys, in tracing the
moral causes, which produce the difference between CHIC
Mall and another in private lif.,—and which, on a more
extended theatre of developement and exhibition, re-
gulate the comparative grandeur and insignificance of
states. With an interest unfelt by less cultivated minds,
his discerning eye traverses the page which records the
history of in at, bath in his individual, and collective
character;—whieh either unitizes hi:: wants in domestic
pile, iris social pleasures,—his rational tiwulties,—his
moral qualities,—his powers of utility, and consequent
estimation:—or, in that more extended sphere, which
fixes on him the gaze of nations, and unites with his
decisions, the political destinies of mankind. In his
favourite lueubrutious, he goes hack to the remotest ages
of antiquity, and from traditionary actsmnts, or written
records, traces the operati,cl of the human intellect in
the varied institutes, customs, and improvements, which
separate one people from another; awl he which, some
nations are not only raise:l to the highest point of
power and flaw, individually considered, but acquire an
aseendanev in the councils and measures of neighbouring.,
and even distant states, and communities.
In the lapse of multiplied generations, in the extended
cyrcle of Caw thousand years, the field of gratification to
such a mind, is boundless in its objects. It spreads
I.ditre him the early stores of Egyptian cultivation;
the chaste nvalels and specimens of the Grecian arts
and sciences, the animating documents of Homan re-
finement, independent of the scattered r.tys of genii's.
and civilization, which hove, occasionally, illuminated
tic hiriAtin of less-tiwourea communities.
In the flowing course it' human atnirs. he passes on,
from the records or antiquity, to the transactions of
nnalern days. Ills comprehensive mind grasps the dis-
tinctive ;narks which separate these important pen eels of
history. lie notes the secret, yet powerful iutlueuees,