Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/177

 of news there. You have a good fire, which you may sit by as long as you please. You have a dish of coffee; you meet your friends for the transaction of business, and all for a penny, if you don’t care to spend more.” (P. 146.) “There are cook shops enough in all parts of the town, where it is very common to go and choose upon the spit the part you like, and to eat it there. In France custom would not allow a man of any distinction to be seen to eat in such a place; but in England they laugh at such niceties. One of the first lords of the Court makes no scruple to take a hack if his own coach keeps him waiting too long; and a gentleman of £1500 a-year enters a cook’s-shop without fear of being despised, and dines for his shilling to his heart’s content. I have often eat in that manner with a gentleman of my acquaintance who is very rich, and was a Member of the House of Commons.”

As to visits, by which he means friendly or ceremonious calls, he remarks (p. 332)—

“People of high rank pay visits to one another in England as much as we do in France, generally about evening; but not so the ordinary sort of people. In France all the little shop-keepers, particularly the women, go with their gowns about their heels to call upon one another by turns. In England persons of that rank go to see one another with their work in their hands and cheerfulness in their countenances, without rule or constraint, except on the occasion of a marriage or a death, when a visit of ceremony is expected.” (P. 77.) “The English eat well, but are no great feasters; they do not invite their friends to eat at their houses so frequently as we do in France; but upon certain grand occasions they make sumptuous banquets.” (P. 1.) “The English mutton in my opinion is not so good as ours in France; it has quite another taste; this I was sensible of the moment I came to London. The English beef is said to be the best in the world; let them be judges who have a nicer palate than I pretend to have. Their poultry is tender, and (I think) excellent, yet many French people think it insipid, compared with the exquisite relish of French poultry.” (P. 315.) “Blessed is he that invented pudding! Oh, what an excellent thing is an English pudding! Flour, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, suet, marrow, raisins, &c, are the usual ingredients. To come in at pudding-time means to come in at the most lucky moment of time. Give an Englishman his pudding, and he will think it a noble treat in any part of the world. They never dream of dessert, unless it be a piece of cheese; fruit is brought only to the tables of the great, and to but a small number among them.” (P. 88.) “Those Frenchmen who set up for a nice taste despise all English fruit, but this is going too far. Though the climate of France is more happy, that of England is not unhappy. The fruit sold at common markets (and the French refugees eat little other) is generally bad enough, but we must not judge of the whole piece by such a sample.”

(P. 17.) “Hundreds of kinds of beer are made in England, some of which are not bad. Art has well supplied nature in this article. But what I say is, beer is art, and wine is nature; and I will stand up for nature against the world.” (P. 69.) “In England, especially among the middle classes, when you drink at table, you must drink to somebody’s health, and must observe two rules — first, to sit as motionless as a statue while the drinker is drinking; and, secondly, thereafter to make him a low bow, to the great risk of dipping your wig in the sauce on your plate. A foreigner thinks it most comical to observe a man, who is just going to cut some bread or to chew a mouthful of meat, or who has begun some operation of that kind, and all at once to see him put down his knife, or fork, or spoon, grow as motionless as one paralysed, put on a solemn face, and keep his eyes fixed on some man who has announced himself as about to drink his health. If you are going to drink a man’s health, you should first fix your eye on him, and give him time to swallow his mouthful, that you may not place him under the uneasy necessity of putting so sudden a stop to his mill, as to have to sit for a time with his cheek swelled into the shape of an egg or a wen.”

With regard to morality and religion in England, he observes:—

(P. 78.) “The Church of England was not willing to meltdown the Roman religion quite, as was done at Geneva and elsewhere, and to purify it by the crucible of Calvinism. She set about the reformation of that religion in another manner, cutting off what was bad and superfluous, and mending what was mendable, without thinking herself obliged to change the lace of it entirely.” (P. 310.) “The English of all sects, but particularly the Presbyterians, make profession of being very strict observers of the Sabbath day. I believe their doctrine upon this head does not differ from ours, but assuredly our scruples are much less than theirs. This appears upon a hundred occasions, but I have observed it particularly in the printed confessions of persons who are hanged. Sabbath-breaking is the crime the poor wretches always begin with; if they had killed father and mother they would not mention that, till they have professed how often they broke the Sabbath. One of the good English customs on the Sabbath day is to feast as nobly as possible, and especially not to forget the pudding.”

As to family government, he says (p. 33)—

“They have an extraordinary regard in England for young children; they are always flattering them, always caressing them, always praising what they do. At least it seems so to