the
customs of the land. They much commend however the industry and careful
habits of the German and Netherland women, who do the work which in
England devolves upon the men. Hence, England is called the paradise of
married women, for the unmarried girls are kept much more strictly than
upon the continent. The women are, handsome, white, dressy, modest;
although they go freely about the streets without bonnet, hood, or veil;
but lately learned to cover their faces with a silken mask or vizard with
a plumage of feathers, for they change their fashions every year, to the
astonishment of many."

Paul Hentzner, a tourist from Germany at precisely the same epoch,
touches with equal minuteness on English characteristics. It may be
observed, that, with some discrepancies, there is also much similarity,
in the views of the two critics.

"The English," says the whimsical Paul, are serious, like the Germans,
lovers of show, liking to be followed, wherever they go, by troops of
servants, who wear their master's arms, in silver, fastened to their left
sleeves, and are justly ridiculed for wearing tails hanging down their
backs. They excel in dancing and music, for they are active and lively,
although they are of thicker build than the Germans. They cut their hair
close on the forehead, letting it hang down on either side. They are good
sailors, and better pirates, cunning, treacherous, thievish. Three
hundred and upwards are hanged annually in London. Hawking is the
favourite sport of the nobility. The English are more polite in eating
than the French, devouring less bread, but more meat, which they roast in
perfection. They put a great deal of sugar in their drink. Their beds are
covered with tapestry, even those of farmers. They are powerful in the
field, successful against their enemies, impatient of anything like
slavery, vastly fond of great ear-filling noises, such as cannon-firing,
drum-beating, and bell-ringing; so that it is very common for a number of
them, when they have got a cup too much in their heads, to go up to some
belfry, and ring the bells for an hour together, for the sake of the
amusement. If they see a foreigner very well made or particularly
handsome, they will say "'tis pity he is not an Englishman."

It is also somewhat amusing, at the present day, to find a German
elaborately explaining to his countrymen the mysteries of
tobacco-smoking, as they appeared to his unsophisticated eyes in England.
"At the