He glories also in the intellectual pre-eminence of his country. Her victories by sea and land attest the genius of her captains; her institutions bear witness to the sagacity of her lawgivers and her statesmen. Her railroads, docks, canals, and other public works, bear the marks of superior intelligence acting for the general good. His countrymen were the first to press steam into the active service of mankind. By the genius of Watt and his successors, a power, before destructive and uncontrollable, has been rendered the mighty agent of man's will, the supplier of his wants, and the minister of his convenience. Through their inventions, steam has become, as it were, the breath, the life, of a noble animal of man's creation, untiring in its ceaseless labours, irresistible in its tremendous strength; and, when its maker chooses to endow it with powers of motion, fleeter also than the wind, but of imposing might and majesty as it pursues its headlong course; and yet, withal, checked by a single touch, yielding a perfect obedience to the hand of its ruler, and submissive to the slightest intimation of his will. In the walks of science, literature, and philosophy, he finds equal reason to be proud of his country. Splendid discoveries in every branch of science meet him as he enquires, and but a few years have passed away since the death of one--Sir Humphry Davy--of whom it is scarce too much to say, that he revolutionized a great science by his discoveries, or that, by the power of his single intellect, he dived deeper into the hidden mysteries of the material world than all preceding generations had been able to penetrate. In short, an Englishman finds his country possessed of warriors, statesmen, philosophers, historians, poets, and authors, in every branch of literature, who are the admiration of the whole civilized world. In all these, England stands proudly pre-eminent, the first, the very first, among the nations. It is much to be able to feel this, but an Englishman would fain feel even more than this; his noble ambition is to see his country first in every thing; he would have her pre-eminent alike in the fine arts and those pursuits which distinguish the recreations and amusements of a refined and polished people, as in the more useful arts of life.