It is nationalist in the narrowest sense; and no one knows the beauty and simplicity of the Middle Ages who has not seen St.George's Cross separate, as it was at Crecy or Flodden, and noticed how much finer a flag it is than the Union Jack.

And the word "merry" bears witness to an England famous for its music and dancing before the coming of the Puritans, the last traces of which have been stamped out by a social discipline utterly un-English.

Not for two years, but for ten decades Cobbett has been in prison; and his enemy, the "efficient" foreigner, has walked about in the sunlight, magnificent, and a model for men.

I do not think that even the Prussians ever boasted about "Merry Prussia." VI--_Hamlet and the Danes_ In the one classic and perfect literary product that ever came out of Germany--I do not mean "Faust," but Grimm's Fairy Tales--there is a gorgeous story about a boy who went through a number of experiences without learning how to shudder.

In one of them, I remember, he was sitting by the fireside and a pair of live legs fell down the chimney and walked about the room by themselves.