ENGLISHMEN.
There is in the character of perhaps a majority of Englishmen a singular commingling of the haughty and the subservient,—the result, doubtless, of the mixed nature, partly aristocratic and partly democratic, of the government, and of the peculiar structure of English society, in which every man indemnifies himself for the subserviency he is required to exhibit to the classes above, by exacting a similar subserviency from those below him. Thackeray, who is to be considered a competent judge of the character of his countrymen, puts the remark into the mouth of one of his characters, that, "if you wish to make an Englishman respect you, you must treat him with insolence." The language is somewhat too strong, and it would not be altogether safe to act upon the suggestion; but the witticism embodies a modicum of truth, for all that.