“The English are a very clever, handsome, and well-made people,” says a learned Antwerp historian and merchant, who had resided a long time in London, “but, like all islanders, by nature weak and tender.  They are generally fair, particularly the women, who all—­even to the peasant women—­protect their complexions from the sun with fans and veils, as only the stately gentlewomen do in Germany and the Netherlands.  As a people they are stout-hearted, vehement, eager, cruel in war, zealous in attack, little fearing:  death; not revengeful, but fickle, presumptuous, rash, boastful, deceitful, very suspicious, especially of strangers, whom they despise.  They are full of courteous and hypocritical gestures and words, which they consider to imply good manners, civility, and wisdom.  They are well spoken, and very hospitable.  They feed well, eating much meat, which-owing to the rainy climate and the ranker character of the grass—­is not so firm and succulent as the meat of France and the Netherlands.  The people are not so laborious as the French and Hollanders, preferring to lead an indolent life, like the Spaniards.  The most difficult and ingenious of the handicrafts are in the hands of foreigners, as is the case with the lazy inhabitants of Spain.  They feed many sheep, with fine wool, from which, two hundred years ago, they learned to make cloth.  They keep many idle servants, and many wild animals for their pleasure, instead of cultivating the sail.  They have many ships, but they do not even catch fish enough for their own consumption, but purchase of their neighbours.  They dress very elegantly.  Their costume is light and costly, but they are very changeable and capricious, altering their fashions every year, both the men and the women.  When they go away from home, riding or travelling, they always wear their best clothes, contrary to the habit of other nations.  The English language is broken Dutch, mixed with French and British terms and words, but with a lighter pronunciation.  They do not speak from the chest, like the Germans, but prattle only with the tongue.”

Here are few statistical facts, but certainly it is curious to see how many national traits thus photographed by a contemporary, have quite vanished, and have been exchanged for their very opposites.  Certainly the last physiological criticism of all would indicate as great a national metamorphosis, during the last three centuries, as is offered by many other of the writer’s observations.

“With regard to the women,” continues the same authority, “they are entirely in the power of the men, except in matters of life and death, yet they are not kept so closely and strictly as in Spain and elsewhere.  They are not locked up, but have free management of their household, like the Netherlanders and their other neighbours.  They are gay in their clothing, taking well their ease, leaving house-work to the servant-maids, and are fond of sitting, finely-dressed, before their doors to see the passers-by and to be seen of them.  In all banquets and dinner-parties they have the most honour, sitting at the upper end of the board, and being served first.