to the emperor of China by lord Macartney, Mr. Barrow was not able to
make the president of this learned society understand the real merit of
that instrument. Besides, how should a people be able to comprehend
astronomy, to know the position of the heavenly bodies, and determine
the orbits of the planets, while it is ignorant of the elements of
mathematics, and makes its calculations by the help of vertical
arithmetical tables, like those used by the shop-keepers in Russia, and
who are ignorant both of analysis and geometry?--_Timkowski's Mission
to China_.

* * * * *


COMPARISON OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH.


The following are points of comparison which may be remarked in the
characters of the French and English. The French are great talkers, the
English great thinkers; the former excel in vivacity, the latter in
solidity of intellect. The French dress with splendour, the English with
neatness; the French live almost exclusively on bread, the English on
meat. Both are passionate; but it is the blood which rouses the passion
of a Frenchman, and the bile which exasperates an Englishman. The anger
of a Frenchman is more violent, that of an Englishman more pertinacious.
A Frenchman spends his money on his clothes, an Englishman on his belly.
A Frenchman follows the stream, an Englishman delights in struggling
against it. The friendships of the French are quickly formed, and as
quickly dissolved; those of the English are formed slowly, and as slowly
relinquished. The French respect their superiors, the English respect
themselves; the former are better citizens, the latter better men. The