its ripened form it constitutes an order of character remote from whatever is lovely and benevolent.
Now, in any such case, instead of preaching charity in a formal manner (proper indeed as such instructions may be in their place and time) one might endeavour to put the keen observing instinct upon another track; and by directing the shrewd eye to those more broad characteristics, partly comic, partly picturesque, which mark callings and modes of life among the laborious classes, give innocent occupation to a faculty that will be sure to find its objects. With the same view, and with still higher advantage, we may turn to the peculiarities of national costume and manners, and go on to fill the imagination, by means of graphic representation and description, with whatever is most striking in the dresses, arms, modes of life, and general exterior of the nations that have figured in history. But of this more presently.
It is certain that, while malevolent or chilling sentiments, almost invariably, connect themselves with a keen sense of personal peculiarities, when this power of discrimination takes its range only within a narrow circle, as upon the individuals of a neighbourhood; on the contrary, bland and kindly feelings, and a disposition to find something good under every form of humanity, is the usual, if not constant accompaniment of the very same faculty when brought to bear upon the wide varieties of human nature, in all classes of society, in all countries, and in all times. I am not now called upon to account for the fact ; but a fact it is, that none are more indulgent toward their fellows, none assimilate more readily with persons and modes new to them, none walk about the world with a broader preparation of comprehensive charity, none are so free from petty jealousies and sour evil surmises, none so exempt from splenetic prejudices, as those who have a quick eye to catch the dramatic and the picturesque in human character, and
