unerringly its future advance to the position of a first-class power.
The amazing faculty of imitation displayed by the Japanese in old times
was patent to him. He had seen them borrow part of their arts, their
sciences, their crafts, their literature, their religion, and many of
their customs from the Chinese; and he might have been aware that they
would likewise borrow from the West, as soon as they had intercourse
with it, those essentials of civilisation which would raise them to
their present position in the world. To him their fearlessness, their
tenacity, and their patriotism, were known; and he was so well aware of
their powers of organisation, that he might have foreseen the rapid
development which was to take place.

What historian who has read the ancient books of the Irish--the Book of
the Dun Cow, the Book of Ballymote, the Book of Lismore, and the
like--can show either surprise or dismay at the events which have
occurred in Ireland in modern times? Of the hundreds of kings of Ireland
whose histories are epitomised in such works as that of the old
archæologist Keating, it would be possible to count upon the fingers
those who have died in peace; and the archæologist, thus, knows better
than to expect the descendants of these kings to live in harmony one
with the other. National characteristics do not change unless, as in the
case of the Greeks, the stock also changes.

In the Jews we have another example of the persistence of those national
characteristics which history has made known to us. The Jews first
appear in the dimness of the remote past as a group of nomad tribes,
wandering over southern Palestine, Egypt, and the intervening deserts;
and at the present day we see them still homeless, scattered over the
face of the globe, the "tribe of the wandering foot and weary breast."