“As concerning the nature, propertie, and disposition of the people they be desirous of new fangles, praising things past, contemning things present, and coveting after things to come.  Ambitious, proud, light, and unstable, ready to be carried away with every blast of wind.”  The French paid back with scorn the traditional hatred of the English for the French.  Perlin (1558) finds the people “proud and seditious, with bad consciences and unfaithful to their word in war unfortunate, in peace unfaithful”; and there was a Spanish or Italian proverb:  “England, good land, bad people.”  But even Perlin likes the appearance of the people:  “The men are handsome, rosy, large, and dexterous, usually fair-skinned; the women are esteemed the most beautiful in the world, white as alabaster, and give place neither to Italian, Flemish, nor German; they are joyous, courteous, and hospitable (de bon recueil).”  He thinks their manners, however, little civilized:  for one thing, they have an unpleasant habit of eructation at the table (car iceux routent a la table sans honte & ignominie); which recalls Chaucer’s description of the Trumpington miller’s wife and daughter: 

        “Men might her rowtyng hearen a forlong,
        The wenche routeth eek par companye.”

Another inference as to the table manners of the period is found in Coryat’s “Crudities” (1611).  He saw in Italy generally a curious custom of using a little fork for meat, and whoever should take the meat out of the dish with his fingers—­would give offense.  And he accounts for this peculiarity quite naturally:  “The reason of this their curiosity is, because the Italian cannot by any means indure to have his dish touched with fingers, seeing all men’s fingers are not alike cleane.”  Coryat found the use of the fork nowhere else in Christendom, and when he returned, and, oftentimes in England, imitated the Italian fashion, his exploit was regarded in a humorous light.  Busino says that fruits were seldom served at dessert, but that the whole population were munching them in the streets all day long, and in the places of amusement; and it was an amusement to go out into the orchards and eat fruit on the spot, in a sort of competition of gormandize between the city belles and their admirers.  And he avers that one young woman devoured twenty pounds of cherries, beating her opponent by two pounds and a half.

All foreigners were struck with the English love of music and drink, of banqueting and good cheer.  Perlin notes a pleasant custom at table:  during the feast you hear more than a hundred times, “Drink iou” (he loves to air his English), that is to say, “Je m’en vois boyre a toy.”  You respond, in their language, “Iplaigiu”; that is to say, “Je vous plege.”  If you thank them, they say in their language, “God tanque artelay”; that is, “Je vous remercie de bon coeur.”  And then, says the artless Frenchman, still improving on his English, you should respond thus:  “Bigod, sol drink iou agoud oin.”  At the great and princely banquets, when the pledge went round and the heart’s desire of lasting health, says the chronicler, “the same was straight wayes knowne, by sound of Drumme and Trumpet, and the cannon’s loudest voyce.”  It was so in Hamlet’s day: