"Thank God I am a Briton," said Nelson; a phrase, doubtless, many more of us will re-echo with equal energy; but while we are expressing our gratitude let our thankfulness extend to this gratifying fact, that the liberty of our laws is even surpassed by the licence of our language. No obscure recess of our tongue is so deep that we cannot by _habeas corpus_ right bring up a long-forgotten phrase, and provided the speaker have a meaning and be able to convey it to the minds of his hearers, we are seldom disposed to be critical on the manner, if the matter be there. Besides this, there are styles of eloquence so imbued with the spirit of certain eras in French history, that the discussion of any subject of ancient or modern days, will always have its own peculiar character of diction. Thus, there is the rounded period and flowing sententiousness of Louis XIV., the more polished but less forcible phraseology of the regency itself, succeeded by the epigrammatic taste and pointed brevity introduced by Voltaire. The empire left its impress on the language, and all the literature of the period wore the _esprit soldatesque_; and so on down to the very days of the barricades, each changing phase of political life had its appropriate expression. To assume these with effect, was not of course the gift of every man, and yet to have erred in their adoption, would have been palpable to all; here then is one important difference between us, and on this subject alone I might cite at least twenty more. The excitable Frenchman scarcely uses any action while speaking, and that, of the most simple and subdued kind. The phlegmatic Englishman stamps and gesticulates with all the energy of a madman. We esteem humour; they prefer wit: we like the long consecutive chain of proof that leads us step by step to inevitable conviction; they like better some brief but happy illustration that, dispensing with the tedium of argument, presents a question at one glance before them. They have that general knowledge of their country and its changes, that an illustration from the past is ever an effective weapon of the orator; while with us the force would be entirely lost from the necessity of recounting the incident to which reference was made.