wealthiest have undertaken to address their minds to the difficult questions which concern labour and capital, and to inquire by what measures a more widespread contentment might be diffused through the working classes. How is it, then, that with all these known and admitted signs of prosperity and wellbeing, we have fallen to a condition in Europe in which our wishes count for nothing, our counsel is unsought, our alliance uncared for?

It is true we heard a few days ago at Greenwich the flattering and civil things foreign officers and generals had said of our army— speeches so redolent of praise, that the Premier's modesty could not repeat them; but it would be as well to ask, who were the witnesses thus called to character? were they not, some of them at least, taken from the armies who should be arrayed against us in the event of a Continental war? I do not know if Mr Gladstone be a whist-playerI should, on guess, say he is not; but if he were, and should invite a choice selection from "the Portland" to pronounce on his play, with the assurance that he meant to join that Club, and play five-pound points, is it not presumable that these gentlemen would see a great deal to admire in his skill at the game, and wonderfully little to reprehend; and "that the friendly critics would point out, as he knew they would, and he hoped they would point out, many things on which he might improve?" They would upon the whole declare, that a pleasanter assurance than that he had last given, as to his high stakes, coupled with what they had seen of his skill, they had not heard for many a year; and that when they returned to their Club, they would not fail to report a determination so certain to afford an unmixed satisfaction.

Whatever weakness or indiscretion there might have been in this sally is more than compensated for in another part of the same speech. The graceful allusion to Mr Bradlaugh has not, so far as I know, its counterpart in our political history.

I have passingly spoken of some of the features which distinguish the England of the past from our present-day England; but, strangely enough, there is not one of them so distinctive as the characteristics of mind, intellect, and acquirement which marked the agitators of the two periods. Mr Pitt's Bradlaugh was John Wilkes. But Wilkes was a scholar and a wit. Lord Mansfield calls him "the pleasantest companion and the politest gentleman that he knew. Charles Butler found him "a delightful and instructive companion." These, it is true, were not the chief traits by which his popularity was acquired. He was an utter profligate, and the practised libeller of all that was decent or venerable in the land. Yet Mr Pitt never, to my knowledge, quot ed the North Briton.' Mr Gladstone is more lucky; he is fortunate enough to live in an era when he can cite a tribune of the peo ple, and tell a listening world what stores of noble sentiment and wise reflection will be found in his writ ings. If some member of the Ministry will not enliven the next Cabinet dinner by a Fenian song, I am prepared to say there is no justice for Ireland, and that the omission will be another argument for Home Rule.

Not wishing to be classed amongst those who propagate small-pox or the cattle-plague, I shrink from owning the alarm the present condition of Europe occasions me: or how strong my conviction is, that the annexation of Belgium is only a deferred cause; and that our "friendly

THE present average duration of life in France is about thirty-eight years; the population amounts to thirty-eight millions; consequently, if we take fifteen as the age where childhood ends, there would appear to be about fifteen millions of children in France. This way of calculating is, of course, not absolutely exact, but it suffices to give an approximate idea on the subject; and, in the absence of any specific information in the census returns, it is the only one which can be applied.

Fifteen millions of children imply fifteen millions of different characters; for until education, example, and habit have levelled the infinitely-varied dispositions with which we come into the world, it cannot be said that any two of us are really alike. Under the influence of our " bringing up" we tend towards approximate uniformity, externally, at least; we learn to control our tempers, to guide our tongues, to subdue our caprices. But children are more natural: we see them almost as they are-the mass of them, that is; and so long as they have not been led under the common yoke by common teaching, they exhibit a variety of humours and fancies which we cease to find in their well-schooled elders. It is therefore impossible to lay down any general national type of character for children, especially as, in most cases, their habits of thought, their manners and their prejudices, are susceptible of entire modification if they are removed during childhood from one centre to another. It has been proved, by numerous examples, that a boy of ten, if he be transported to another land, may

no way means that the real basis of character can be remodelled by outward leverage; all that is intended to be urged is, that the parts of young natures which depend for their formation and consolidation on local and personal influences are liable to change with those influences, so long as time has not stamped them definitely and indelibly. And if this be true as a general principle; if the innumerable shades and tints of temperament which we observe in yet untrained minds are met with in every land; if, diversified as they are by nature, these minds are susceptible of endless other changes from the effect of the new contacts to which they may be successively exposed, it follows that in a country so large as France, composed of so many different provinces, containing populations of varied origin and habits, we shall remark, even more than elsewhere, the endlessly-shifting phases of child-nature. though France exhibits even less uniformity in the matter than is discoverable in other countries, it shows no excessive contradictions; and though the fifteen millions of little people that we are talking of possess fifteen millions of different little heads and hearts, the contrasts between them are, after all, not so

But

vast as to prevent us from grouping them into a few classes.

At first sight it may seem needless, and indeed almost absurd, to say that the main distinction to establish between French children is to divide them into boys and girls; the dif ference of sex is, however, accompanied in France by such singular and such marked differences of character and natural tendencies, that it is difficult to lay too much stress on it; it is the essential basis of the subject. The French do not see it, at least it does not strike them with anything like the force with which it presents itself to foreign observers; and they are particularly surprised to be told that the radical demarcation which exists between their men and women asserts itself from the cradle, and that the special masculine and feminine peculiarities of their national temper are distinctly visible in their children. Excepting the United States, no country exhibits a divergence of ideas and objects between the sexes such as we recognise in France. Other nations show us a tolerable unity of ends and means between men and women; we find elsewhere approximately identical hopes and principles and springs of action. In America and in France we discover, on the contrary, that though husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, may live together in admirable harmony, they differ profoundly in their views of life and its duties, and in the systems which they employ to attain the form and degree of contentment which their individual needs may crave for. It is not going too far to say-though the question must be approached with infinite prudence, in order to avoid exaggerationthat the salient dispositions of the French man and the French woman drift in opposite directions. The sexes are held together by a common bond of interest and affec

tion, but their tendencies are not the same; and they live, as a whole, in a chronic condition of disaccord on many of the main theories, obligations, and even pleasures of existence. The women stand, incontestably, far above the men. We need not look long or wide for a proof of this assertion: the attitude of the two sexes during the late war, and especially inside besieged Paris, supplies it with sufficient force. Of course all these observations are only general-there are plentiful exceptions; but it cannot be denied that the higher moral qualities-resolute attachment to duty, self-sacrificing devotion, unyielding maintenance of principle, and religious faith, which is the key to all the restare abundant amongst French women, and are relatively rare amongst French men. It is pleasanter to state the question in this negative form, to indicate the qualities which the men have not, than to define it positively and to determine the defects which they have; and it is scarcely necessary, for the purpose which we are pursuing, to be more precise in the comparison between grown-up people. Our inquiry is limited to children; and, provided we clearly recognise the main outlines of the distinctions which exist between their parents, that will suffice to enable us to verify the statement that those same distinctions are visible, of course in less vivid colours, amongst the little ones.

Every one will assent to the proposition that the most marked feature of the French is the development of their emotional and sensa tional faculties. This development exists in both sexes, but is far more evident amongst the women than amongst the men; and it seems to acquire force with education, and to be most glaringly conspicuous in the highest classes. Repression of manifestations of feeling forms no