A new friendship, a new ideal, a reform, a noble action, a wonderful poet, an exquisite painting--any of these things will be admired and praised by every other people in Europe long before you can get Englishmen to praise.

The Englishman all this time is studying, considering, trying to find fault.

Why should he try to find fault?
So that he will not make any mistakes at a later day.

He has inherited the terrible caution of his ancestors in regard to mistakes.

It must be granted that his caution has saved him from a number of very serious mistakes that other nations have made.