Excerpt from Travels on the Continent and in England It is amusing and instructive to see ourselves, as in a glass, in the accounts of foreigners. Persons cannot see themselves so well as they are seen by others. No nation has a higher opinion of itself than the English. Foreigners, however, take the liberty to speak of us as we do of them - as they find us; and though it may not in all cases be gratifying to hear what they say of us, it is always amusing, and often affords a valuable lesson. Stephen Perlin, a French ecclesiastic, who was in England in the reign of Edward VI., and who wrote with all the prejudices of his countrymen, is extremely scurrilous: - "One may observe of the English," says he, "that they are neither valiant in war, nor faithful in peace, which is apparent by experience; for although they are placed in a good soil, and a good country, they are wicked, and so extremely, fickle, that at one moment they will adore a prince, and the next moment they would kill or crucify him. They have a mortal enmity to the French, whom they conceive to be their ancient enemies, and in common call us French dogs - but they hate all sorts of strangers. It displeases me that these villains, in their own country, spit in our faces, although, when they are in France, we treat them like divinities. But herein the French demonstrate themselves to be of a noble and generous spirit." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.