_Hamlet_ to Browning's _The Ring and the Book_, is concerned with no
other subject. The age-long satire against the English is that in
England every man claims the right to go to heaven his own way. English
institutions, instead of subduing men to a single pattern, are devised
chiefly with the object of saving the rights of the subject and the
liberty of the individual. 'Every man in his humour' is an English
proverb, and might almost be a statement of English constitutional
doctrine. But this extreme individualism is the right of all, and does
not favour self-exaltation. The English temper has an almost morbid
dislike of all that is showy or dramatic in expression. I remember how a
Winchester boy, when he was reproached with the fact that Winchester has
produced hardly any great men, replied, 'No, indeed, I should think not.
We would pretty soon have knocked that out of them.' And the epigrams of
the English temper usually take the form of understatement. 'Give
Dayrolles a chair' were the last dying words of Lord Chesterfield,
spoken of the friend who had come to see him. When the French troops go
over the parapet to make an advance, their battle cry shouts the praises
of their Country. The British troops prefer to celebrate the advance in
a more trivial fashion, 'This way to the early door, sixpence extra.'

I might go on interminably with this dissertation, but I have said
enough for my purpose. The history of England has had much to do with
moulding the English temper. We have been protected from direct
exposure to the storms that have swept the Continent. Our wars on land
have been adventures undertaken by expeditionary forces. At sea, while
the power of England was growing, we have been explorers, pirates,
buccaneers. Now that we are involved in a great European war on land,
our methods have been changed. The artillery and infantry of a modern
army cannot act effectively on their own impulse. We hold the sea, and
the pirates' work for the present has passed into other hands. But our