Nor was this the only time when the insular position of England did goodly service in maintaining its liberties and its internal peace.

But it was not merely in the simple facility of warding off external attack that the insular position of England was so serviceable.

But how insular and pathetically solitary are all the people we know!

In the same collection [in a letter dated Sept. 15, 1700], the Earl of Argyle gives a picturesque account of an embassy from the great M'Neil of Barra, as that insular Chief used to be denominated:'I received a letter yesterday from M'Neil of Barra, who lives very far off, sent by a gentleman in all formality, offering his service, which had made you laugh to see his entry.

[901] 'He that surveys it [the church-yard] attended by an insular antiquary may be told where the kings of many nations are buried, and if he loves to soothe his imagination with the thoughts that naturally rise in places where the great and the powerful lie mingled with the dust, let him listen in submissive silence; for if he asks any questions his delight is at an end.'

You see, two- thirds of them are gentlemen, after a fashion; not, perhaps, quite in the sense in which we understand the word, but then theahmodicum of French blood in my veins counteracts, I dare say, some little insular prejudices.

If, then, the Manila cigars have not hitherto succeeded in making themselves acceptable in Europe on account of their inferiority, the blame is attributable simply to the system of compulsory labor, and the chronic insolvency of the Insular Treasury, whilst the produce of other tobacco countries has steadily progressed in quality in consequence of free competition.

Let us, however, cherish the hope that increased demand will cause a rise in the prices; a few particularly good crops, and other propitious circumstances, would relieve at once the Insular Treasury from its difficulties; and then the tobacco monopoly might be cheerfully surrendered.

Whoever takes the trouble to read a paper in a late Edinburgh Review on the Nervous System, will doubtless find that much of our predilection for hanging and drowning is to be attributed to this "insular situation.

And in this insular security I spoke deliberately and specifically of the King of England, of the representative of the Tudors and Plantagenets.

Above all, Anglicanism was too limited; it was local, insular, national; its theory was made for its special circumstances; and he describes in a remarkable passage how, in contrast with this, there rung in his ears continually the proud self-assertion of the other side, Securus judicat orbis terrarum.

The tongue which Bacon feared to use in his writings, lest they should remain forever unknown to all but the inhabitants of a relatively unimportant insular kingdom, is now the speech of two continents.

England's insular position, moreover, permitted it to work out its own fate comparatively unhampered by the presence of outside powers; so that it developed a type of nationality totally distinct from the types of the European mainland.

He had nothing of insular narrowness, and none of the hereditary prejudices which too often interfere with the capacity of English travellers or residents among us to sympathize with and justly understand habits of life and of thought so different from those to which they have been accustomed.

" I was warm, irritated, and my dress was too tight in the belt, so I just leaned my two elbows on that show-case, and I said to him: "Do you mean to have the impertinence, my good man, to tell two American ladies that what they are looking for is not in good taste, simply because you are so stupid and insular as not to keep it in stock?

It is a characteristic difference between the clever American and the insular British shopkeeper that in America, when a thing such as I have mentioned is suspected, the saleswoman or a private detective is sent to shadow the suspect, and ascertain if she really wore the garment in question.

An insular race is therefore in process of forming.

"Very well," said one of the knowing ones, who has lived abroad the larger part of his life, "then you must go to 'The Insular,' in Piccadilly.

We will go to 'The Insular.'" We wrote at once for rooms, and then telegraphed for them from Southampton.

In this fashion we reached "The Insular," where we were received by four or five gorgeous creatures in livery, the head one of whom said, "Miss Columbia?"

" Our drinking-water at "The Insular" was on the end of the wash-stand nearest the fire.

So we followed our own trail back to "The Insular."

We were still at "The Insular," when one day I took up a handful of what had once been a tight bodice, and said to my sister: "See how thin I've grown!

" "'The Insular' is considered very good," I remarked, pensively.

Walter awaited the arrival of the foe, but in a spirit which has seldom conducted men to conquest and glory, for if the English infantry had deviated so far from their insular habits as to admire the Spaniards, you may be sure that Gibraltar rock at this day would be a part of the Continent, and not a detached fragment of Great Britain.