A CHARACTER OF FRANCE.  
To which is added, Gallus Castratus. OR AN ANSWER TO A LATE Slanderous Pamphlet, CALLED The Character of England.  
Si talia nefanda & facinora quis non Democritus?  
LONDON, Printed for Nath: Brooke; at the Angel in Cornhill, 1659.   

TO THE Impartial Reader.  
ASinus ad Lyram, Room, room for a Monsieur newly come out of France to cast the Urine of the English Nation: He gins with, My Lord, you command me to give you a minute account, as I understood your meaning, I have discoursed as little of truth as I could, and endeavoured to render myself as ridiculous as my fanatic Genius could permit me. Pardon me, Honoured Countrymen, if the Libel of this uncivil Stranger hath enforced these extravagant expressions from my Pen; certain I am, that his exorbitant satire, besides its several gross mistakes hath Herod-like destroyed the Innocent, spared no Sex, his inveterate malice having extended itself to the profaneness of playing with holy things, he afterwards, Demagoras-like, goes about to poison and disfigure the reputes of our English Ladies, with such black & unworthy aspersions, such false traducing, I might write Lies, to the height of such abuse, as to raise a passion in the most calm and most undisturbed mind, that carries either candour or bravery with it, insomuch, but that it is below the Spirit of a Gentleman to engage his Honour against such unworthiness, he is fit to be answered with the point of a Rapier, then to have such a signal courtesy done him, for any person so to descend as to vouchsafe any other way of answer: through the urgency of some of my dear friends I have undertaken this task, with that truth and ingenious civility that a stranger should meet with, first retorting the Monsieur a short Character of his Country, and afterwards, in answer to him, vindicated our own: the latter I have dedicated to our injured Ladies: Courteous Reader, I present these my unworthy endeavours to thy impartial censure:  
Farewell.   

Reader,  
BE pleased to take notice, that there is now in the Press almost finished, a Book Entitled, England's Worthies, select lives, of the most eminent Persons of the three Nations, from Constantine the Great, to the death of the late Protector Oliver Cromwell.   

A CHARACTER OF FRANCE.  
BEing to describe this Large Continent, I shall offer no Essay either upon the mode of Christianity there, (leaving that to the Dictates of that Divinity implanted in the soul; and although not unworthily thought it is much delapsed, yet De sacris nil nisi bonum) nor will I play with the Crowns and Representatives of God, nor their Will or Governments, although there might be found Gall enough for that subject; but I think it fit to begin with the common, but freest of the Elements, the Air.  
The Air in general is not so pure, but it may admit of priority, and that I may justly give to England; for the French enjoy it either scalding hot, or miserably cold; so that it cannot be denied by any observant Traveller, but in a year, a miracle in Nature is produced, (the reduction of the opposite Zones to Friendship in one Climate) our Snow that only mellowes the clod here, there devours it; and with us, that Sun that would but warm and cherish here, there wastes and withers. Their soil (like their faces) cannot much boast of its charms every where; for as Bodin saith, Exploratum est, deserta & inculta loca, si aquis & viis adjungimus, duos Galliae trientes auferre: That is, the Deserts, Waters and Ways put together, take away the two thirds of France; which the tract between Bordeaux and Baijon, and the sterile pitiful places called The Land of Gascoigne, do to the neighbours (as their uncomfortable lot) well ascertain. As for a Conclusion, the breathing of the Earth, the induct of the Air, may be the purest, cleanest, and subtlest, if scabs, itch, punaries, and such like efflorescencies may be termed pure: The Country itself bearing a more than ordinary affinity and friendship to the Stocks and the Gallows, Wine and Hemp being two of their best commodities.  
The Creatures or Inhabitants, that daily draw their Vigour from these (much like the Earth or soil they Live on) either too near to their Sun of Government, or Frozen to death by its Absence, the great ones frying in Luxury, the poor ones starving in penury, so that that which God only inflicted as a Curse to Adam's seed, here it is made a plague to that Curse: The poor peasant shaving not that Comfort to eat that which was purchased by their sweat and labour, but at the time of its product, then are Marpyes and Vultures ready to snatch it from the Jaws of the almost starved Labourer, and that perhaps to satiate the crazed Lust of some Libidinous Goat, so that which is counted a Miracle on God's part, is here very Common to unbridle the rational Souls, and turn them poor Asses into these shapes. So that hope, the turn-key of the Soul, the spur of high Actions is here so Languid that if a peasant can but by ambition gain the purchase of clean Canvas breeches for holidays, and his wife a Buckram Petticoat for Wakes and Sundays, these are like to wait upon them, like their good Genius, to the hour of their dissolution: And if well kept may be entailed to two or three generations. As for their Liberties their feet enjoy, they cannot boast much of being called free, since if not by nature they are brought to hoofs; yet they by their monstrous clogs are near resembled to them, if we survey the somewhat taller sort of them we shall find them generally to be a speaking fashion, such as have parted with their judgements for the situation of their clothes that have taken a great deal of pains to be ridiculous, there being such a confederacy, betwixt them and their modes to make them appear puppies, they share more of the semstresse then of the Tailor. Their outsides half Linen, so that there can scarcely a distinction be made betwixt their uprising and walking abroad it being natural to them to Live more by their own heat then by the warmth of their clothes, which, is the reason, that there are so many footboys, as numerous as their beggars, which are so many and so impudent that in riding they shall swarm about your horses like flies, and be more troublesome.  
But to proceed and prosecute their Court gallantry, I confess they are more absolute; furnished with the Mode of Command and appear to be Stars, (or rather Meteors of the Court) yet with their Leaves try to cut them up and give a due estimate of them.  
A french Gentleman of this equipage, is one that weighs no Action, but by his own standard: Admires nothing that is not admired by others in himself. He is wonderfully pleased when others vouchsafe him a Laugh or smile, though to abuse him: yet is his Conceit so high that he proposeth in all Encounters a disdain suitable to his resentments, his motions so excentrical and Irregular, and withal so sudden, that if Pythagoras his opinion concerning transmigration be true, he may boast of an Extract from Ginny, though the Citizens of those woods are much to able and outdo him by a natural instinct. Really you would think that nature had only left him unfinished and pinned on his Limbs till a further opportunity, they are so versatile and Lose, so resembled by his discourse that if he be wound up at the period, you shall not know whether it were discoursing, or scolding; And if a Rhodomontado of his valour, be not an Ingredient in this Chart, the composition is defaced utterly; and if you should observe their Garbs, Shrugs, Stops, Cringes, Actions; they much come near the Mode of a Mountebank or Juggler, and if you will but make search into his repository (his pocket) you will swear it; when you shall find a Miscellany of professions, as tools for Barbers, Tooth-drawer's, Surgeons, Apothecaries, Tailors, what not? and it may be a bit in pickle for his lost appetite. But above all properties this must not be forgotten, he is a sworn servant to Venus, that she rather may be called the  Goddess then the Cyprian Deity; nay they do so superearrogate in this, that they turn one Sex into another and take pleasure of that which good old Nature made for a shame; And this Luxe of body is so really worshipped, that indeed they are high Zelots in the Employment, that I believe three parts are clapped and marked with the brand of this Goddess, so that it may be concluded that they cannot be so much in Love. Let the beauty be never so great, without a considerable sum of money be introduced to commit Matrimony in their frolicks, they spare not the external ornaments of their Madams, they cannot at such seasons wear a piece of ferret ribbon but they will cut it to pieces, and swallow it in Urinal to celebrate their better fortunes, being furnished with such convenient boldness to show themselves expert draughts-men, rather than fail, with a piece of Charcoal they will draw all manner of bawdy figures and that not in the Hieroglyphic only, but in the most demonstrative unhandsomeness they can invent.  
As for gaming (the true pimps of time and Luxury,) they are so inconsiderate of the approach of penury, that (as Mr. Howell reports, a Physician's Son (at his being there) played in one night away above sixty thousand Crowns: and one Ionas a keeper of one of these Game pits (in the suburbs of St. German,) some days and nights had above a thousand in the Box; this may well justify the Master of Spring-Garden for his exorbitancy in getting. For Drinking (another Luxe) they are not so sober as they would invite us to think, but that plentifully they will Sacrifice to Bacchus: and when Venus hath worried them, Bacchus and Ceres must recrute them again. Hear what Ammianus Marcellinus saith they are, Vini avidum genus Affectans, ad vini simi litudinem multiplices potus; that is, they are a generation greedy of Drink, and Lovers of several compotations or draughts, witness Rabelais and the young Lady (a modern Author tells us of,) that when the fumes of the prceeding Compotation had sung her a Lullaby to Morpheus, a young Boar taking this offered opportunity, became picklock to her Cabinet and by this means or tenure in soccage was made a Gentleman.  
I Confess it hath been Accounted a piacle in the Virgins to drink wine, yet I can assure you that intolerable yoke is almost kicked off; for they dare dash their water with this Creature so strongly that often they dash the brains of that Element away and of their virginity too. But for their eating I cannot blame them, to blame our long fitting at Meals, since that shall do wrong to them in their often Commessations; which is according to the French Custom, five times in one natural day; so that it is a common saying in France, Come let us go to dinner quickly, that we may have time for a Collation in the the Afternoon, that we may go soon to supper, that after we may take a Nuntion, that going to bed betimes we may rise early to our breakfast: But besides these, when you find not their Chaps wagging, the bell may towl for their dissolution: And really you'll be mistaken if you think they trouble themselves much with Mastication or Grinding it, for they tumble it down whole and leave the effect to God's providence and nature's bounty, but as touching the more particular management of their diet for the ordering of the materials: They fail not to derive their subtlety from some of the hard put too't besieged Garrisons, they make a Little to go so far. Somethings they do which they would have seem wonderful, for they are a people full of ostentation, they pretend strangely to preposterous dishes and are admirable in frieing of frogs with parsley, etc. Which for the most part the men set forth the table with, the woman being exempted as they are such Grobianaes' of sluttishness; they are admirable Alchemists for the paunch, they will extract Gold out of roots, Mushrooms or any thing they dress, which as one writes, may rather be called a drinking then an eating meal, so that it may truly be said of them, that though they eat much they spend little having a trick beyond us Englishmen that they will eat their very drink by morsels: They talk much of the Gusto, but you must not imagine their hodge-podge-pipkin diet to be so wholesome for the body as abateing of the hard word, to be relishing for the ; for it may rightly be said of them that they trade more in sauce then in meat, their Cooks being much of Nebuchadnezars' Employment, though not of such Antiquity; for the most part, I cannot say simpling but constantly picking of Salads.  
As for their Clothing the Chameleon is not more colourable, the Are not more changeable the Wind not more unconstant, and so impatient of any thing that bears the impress of Antiquity (Lord what becomes of old women!) that had not God given a sable night to give birth to a new day, I know not whether the most part had not had their dependence on the shade ere this, or else in a Melancholy Fit become Eunuches: their chiefest preludes to Courtship being their Cover, and those various.  
Now I will give your eyes a treatment in the viewing of their Courted Deities (their Females,) much resembling the Egyptian Numen both in colour and smallness; being bits of Nature's bounty, and things as it were half beautified; Nature having crowded parts together, which by coalition becomes a French Madamoseile: For if you please to view them in all parts, you will find indeed a handsome medley, nature having been so courteous, as what wants in one part is fully made up in another: for as their wastes are very slender, they are seldom without a kennel in their Laps, which may be mistaken for two or three little dogs, their shoulders are so fixed, as you would deem them the daughters of Atlas; yet not with so heavy a burden, having light heads and lighter Fancies to balance their bodies the better. Nature hath laid a thwacking foundation or Buttress to some parts, that she knew would be much used; witness their Posteriours, which are so goodly and ample, that they serve as a Bulwark to the other parts of the body; being (like their dirt in Paris) too strong for a close siege; and what munition is there I suppose sometimes may be known to be whole Cannon.  
Though their mouths are more than ordinary stretched to the Appetite, yet are their eyes small enough, and indeed horrible fierce and black; yet if stirred, (as a little fire is quickly lighted) you shall find galliardy enough to cloy you all the year after.  
Their hands I must needs allow a large share in the Charity of the Graces; and so might their faces have challenged a Throne in the Court of Venus, had not Nature forgot to scour the earthly tincture off them; yet they seem to me a good piece of work unpollished, or a building not yet beautified; so that there may be found a remedy for necessity, but none for rapture or charm: And certainly the French Ladies had no being, or were not famed when the Poets of old perceived such splendour and glories from the faces of their Devotors; for else it had been a Fiction (with a witness) to have attributed these to a subject not at all capable of the reception.  
Their beams and rays (I mean their hair) as the Poets luxuriously baptise them, are not, I protest, those bright beams that were of old so deified, nor those sun beams, those threads of gold, those golden nets, etc. if you please to allow these a resemblance, you may more justly call them beams of Erebus, rays sent from Nox and Saturn, rather curled or wreathed clouds then glorious rays; yet I must say this, had not good Nature allotted them this tincture (which is the only foil to their russet faces) I suppose a man might have endured their witchcraft without motion, except of stomach, yet nevertheless the most part of that Sex may justly claim a privilege from honest Don Quixot (to be styled Ladies of the ill-favoured faces) and had not the Country's heat put a forward salacity upon their Males, so that any meat will serve their greedy appetite, these poor souls might have as well expected Beauty as Courtship.  
Their dispositions have much of vivacity, a Converse as free as the Air, and as universally courted, and so sweetly are they membered with a tongue, that it may give a hint in finding the perpetual motion, friendly Nature having set it with so strong a spring, that after she hath wound it once up, it will keep its course to the tomb, if not afterwards; so that, I suppose, no Land doth so tyrannize, or put such incessant drudgery upon that member as the French, since though they have many holy days to every petty Saint, yet this could never have the comfort to find any hour of rest: since these were none of Pythagoras his Scholars, to whom was commended this, digito compescere labellum, not to speak much till in the age of wisdom; nor did they ever sacrifice to Harprocrates their freedom and customary chat, being a strong enemy to this Deity and his followers: I must give them this Eulogy, that they are no sullen people, but free, open breasted, and take as much liberty to come so near their primitive nakedness, that if it were not for the injuries of the Air, I dare affirm they would scorn these fig-leaves of garb to cover them; but as much as they can they set some upon the stall, hoping it may induce Passengers to think well of their Commodities within: yet I will assure you they are very coy of their lips: it may be this may be assigned as a reason, knowing that Nature by their curtayled stature hath made the backside too near the market. And when I salute their cheek it shall be my honour to be contented, since really their breath is not the Quintessence of Roses; neither is a salute by a kiss much amongst them, since they are so discreet as to keep at a distance that which is deservingly branded with a Noli me Tangere; and further, if kisses be only Intentions, their quick active principals had rather sooner be at the work: But I shall leave with this Apology to those that are Stars amongst them, as deserving a more gallant character, both Gentlemen and Ladies, and those noble souls I blot out, and set them aside, this character, having as much honour for desert as any Creature living that pretends to serve them.  
Their Cities are not to be hist at, neither shall I allow them the bragging character that is given them, since if they had not fonldy bestowed all on Paris, and let the rest go a begging, my Charity might have been greater; so that the French say, it is rather a World then a City; so it is indeed, a world of confusion, a world of dust, a world of Lackeys, a world of stink, and indeed a world of fooleries and vanities.  
The City is large, yet if you look upon its stuffing you will find the brain is too large for the senses, so that the crowd of people, their quick motion, their nasty deport, their native dust, give such a welcome in a hot day to Travellers, that if their streets were not broad the Inhabitants would be strangled in their sleep for want of breath, it is so pestered with Inmates, having in one Tenement three or four Families.  
Their Buildings are uniform, yet poorly lined within, so that in a word you may call it a pile of Royal Almshouses; indeed it is no wonder that they should brag so of the spaciousness of their houses, when the smallness of their Kitchens makes them the larger: one great inconvenience, you can never want winter or summer, dust or dirt, so that at all times of the year it hath a strong charm against Invasion, except you would invade the Plague, or the Cave of Charon.  
As for their pieces of Architecture there is no such Grandeur, and if you should resemble them to Italy, you may find no comparison; large they are, but not so noble as is supposed; but if they were, they are like Satin pinked upon Canvas; but for their private Buildings and Shops, a Pedlar's Booth in England would shame the best of them; and a Pedlar at a Mart with us, would make very well a French Merchant, so that a Friend of mine oretaking one of these Creatures riding the Road, he complaining of the hardness of the times, he answered, I, quoth he, I wonder how the middle sort of people live, when such Merchants as I can scarce live; and you may believe him, if you knew his Carga in the Wagon, which was two or three dozen of Spanish brooms: Of such as these Bragadochia's is Paris' filled and cloyed; this may be truly said of them, that their basest trades have sooner arrived to great riches then those that are amongst them noted of ancient Nobility, and live according to the dignity of their births; and for their way of dealing, as to the subtlety of their Trade, they are seldom deceived, for they trust no body, and if any body trust them, they had as good burn the bill of their particulars, if they are not under lock and key, or can but find out any evasion to shift themselves; they may brag of their merchandises with other Nations, but the most staple Commodities they have received hath been from England, for which for the most part they have exchanged no other then fantastical fashions, toys, and kickshaws to put off, which till they can make good their importunities they will wrack those they traffic with to their own conditions, with their forced faces, shrugs, and cringes in their Inns and Hosteries; they for the most part give their servants no wages, but beg themselves so fervently for them, that the discerning Traveller cannot but scruple whether they or their servants are most fellow-feelers of the extent of his liberality, for which only reason he must endure the impertinency of their unnecessary attendance, for their general entertainments; they are trunk-hosed, bombasted with the mode, and nothing else, they distinguish them according to their usual custom; as they allow of their grapes in their Vineyards, a Passenger may taste to quench his thirst, but he that tarries above their stinted humour mistakes himself; their cushions he will find them to be quickset hedges of no continuance; there is no Nation that takes more freedom for gibeing and provoking of strangers, for they are generally rash, and want nothing of the wildness of behaviour, when their passions are thus desperately set on their angers have no eyes; to compliment them at that time is to set a train to gunpowder, they will so clatter with their discourse, except they are in their more airy genius of continual singing of bawdy and drunken songs, when it will be a wiseman's task to distinguish betwixt their extravagant meeter and galloping prose; as for their Policy, Government, King, Nobles, their Treaties with us, Inter-marriages, their Massacres, sale of Promotions and Judicatories, and other things of this nature; other men with a larger pen having expressed them excellently well, I shall manum a Tabulâ, and for this I have done I expect no reward, nor fear any envy, only Sat est tentasse—  
Yet to sweeten my Genius fit for my dear native Country I shall conclude all with this undoubted Eulogy or Character of England, which a Greek Poet hath drawn to the life. 
— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  And what Eumines saith;  
O Fortunata & omnibus Beatior terris Britannia quae Constantinum Caesarem primum vidisti; Merito te omnibus coeli & soli dotibus natura donavit in qua segetum tanta faecunditas & muneribus utriusque & Cereris & Liberi in qua nemora sine immanibus bestiis, terra sine serpentibus noxiis, contrà pecorum mitium innumerabilis multitudo.  
O most fortunate Britain, more blessed than any other Country, which first didst see Constantine, Nature hath lavishly endowed thee with all decorements of Heaven and Earth; in thee neither the excessive cold of winter, or scorching heat of Summer doth molest the Inhabitants, thou swellest with such a plenty of all kind of Corn, that thou mayest be called the Darling of Ceres and Bacchus; thy Groves are without savage rapacious Creatures, and thy Grass without poisonous Serpents; thy fields are covered with innumerable heads of Cattles tame and wild, their dugs extended with milk and their backs with fleece, both rich and thick; for the pleasure of life, thy days are long, and no night but hath some glimpse of light; the glorious Sun that sets and goes down in other Countries, seems only to pass by thy Coasts.  
Nature as her Darling hath embraced thee with a rich and large Moat, intending still as she made, to lay up her principals and originals in this her Cabinet.  
Their Faces they have like Angels, Wits like Muses, Charms like Graces, cast in a mould between the earthly Spaniard and trifling French; A martial, noble, and hospitable people; I must end with this Distich: 
Quicquid amat luxus quicquid desiderat usus,  
Ex te proveniat, vel aliunde tibi.   
I have not bestowed so much gall on this Character, as I know a modest Reply is more desired, in which, as my fancy hath its traverses, there are several reflections from my Answer which more enlarge this Character; if I have not had salt enough in it 'tis out of a civility that this impertinent Mounsieur never merited.  
FINIS.   

Gallus Castratus. AN ANSWER TO A Slanderous Pamphlet, Called the CHARACTER OF ENGLAND.  
Si talia nefanda & facinora quis non Democritus.  
LONDON, Printed for Nath. Brooks at the Angel in Cornhill, 1659.   

TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS STARS OF GLORY, THE INCOMPARABLE BEAUTIES OF THE ENGLISH NATION.  
THESE WITH A DEEP HUMILITY.   

Gallus Castratus, etc.  
Ladies,  
TO make a Hue and Cry, or research after this Satirist, were to inquire after yesterday Air, or the last evenings Sun; since the perpetrating a sin against Charity and divine Beauty, hath occasioned him to conceal his unworthy name; yet by your permission (fair Ladies) I shall adventure a throw after him, so as to bestow on him a Character not unworthy of his fact.  
He may be thought one of the dislodged brood of wandering Cain, who having sinned in good, sets his hand against all for bad; such as these are true sons of the Curse, they bring brambles for violets, and thorns for Roses; desperate persons to converse with, as infectious in their souls as in their limbs; a Traveller, that makes it his business to deface the glories of Nature, not to admire and adore them; a frothy Wit, not consenting to its captivity, hath in his Capriccios snorted his foam upon the sweet face of this blessed Island; the method he pretends too, for he hath none, was sure begot in a Hirricano, where being frighted by his conscience, he thrusts things together All he Negligen'ce; A brat only born to die accursed, and to show to the world that France hath of late her Monsters as well as Africa.  
His end I cannot remark, except like Erostratus to purchase a fame, though by the vilest infamy, or to engage a smile from those (Bandittors to Nature) the rude offspring of a Brothel or a dunghill: a Monster fitting to rove after its Sire, rather than find a Maecenas in any serious Family; so unfit to bear the name of a Character, that it may well be styled the Leprosy of France cast upon England: But by this time (Ladies) I suppose you have enough of this unmasked Gentleman; now to the work itself.  
And first he apologizeth for his rudeness by the commands of a Person (once a Devoto to the Charms of England) a Person of quality (a Lord) but if his Qualities answered his Dignity, surely his Lordship hath repent him of his commands.  
He declares he had licence only for (Minute things:) His Honour thought great ones too much beyond the sphere of his Activity and Cognizance: but to particularise his aspersions, which I shall civilly name his complaints,  

Comp. 1. His first is, (Of the stiff whispering and forbidden countenances) at Dover.  
Surely his last collation of the Grape at Calais, or the high trot of Neptune, had contributed much to this mistake; since as Comines his own Countryman saith, I used to go to Calais (when in the hands of the English) without a Pass, for (saith he) they are very courteous and honourable in their entertainments to strangers. And further, in their trials with Foreigners they allow them a Jury, de Medietate Lingua. Surely then they had not lost their native Gallantry at this Monsieurs landing: But for a certain the Monsieur brought a face from Madagascar, or a habit from America, not fit to be seen without a motion or amazement, as the Spaniards are usually respected in their Country. But I see this poor Gentleman is mighty tender, for he seems to take pet at every tree that grows not strait, and excepts at any person that comes but near him, much more that doth but touch him: The very Boys give him an Adventure much of Don Quixots, which makes him view all things through enchantment; and I wonder I hear no news of his Echo, a Sancho Pancho to flatter his folly into a Romance.   

Comp. 2. To see his confident Host sit down cheek by jowl by him, belching and puffing Tobacco, and that our Gentlemen do usually entertain them, and are pleased with their impertinencies.  
This Mounsieur was (I dare say) not banished France for his great head-piece; else he might have considered himself now in a free State, where no person is shackled by Prerogative, but may be company (by way of Divertisement) to the greatest piece of Honour in Europe; and if you can fit your Lackey upon what last your humour shall frame, why may not sometimes an impertinency please your fancy, as well as the Character of England doth some of your Ladies? For you must know, our People are not an Asslike galled Nation, who are bound by their chains to come no nearer than an interview of Princes: But I confess my Host was somewhat too bold to approach so nigh, lest he might have had employment for his fingers and nails all the year after.  
But I hope Monsieur you have paid your reckoning, and are now coming to London as you say (the Metropolis of all civility.)   

Comp. 3. You writ, That you had some Honour thrown upon you, as dirt, squibs, roots, nay Rams horns, entering London.  
Seriously, Sir, I wonder at the last Lot, how come they to hit upon this honour for you; I must tell you, that it was a sad and lowering Constellation or Ludibrium of Fortune cast upon your person, that in that great place of civility such ominous Caresses should be offered you, since your deserts had been better paid you in your own Country, and with your own coin. As for the Carmen, as you say overthrew the Hell-carts, I wonder, Sir, how your company escaped, since there was a story, that the Devil rid through our streets with some Blades having none of the best faces.   

Comp. 4. That our City is a wooden, Northern, and inartificial congestion of houses.  
This Monsieur, I perceive, is no curious Architect, for finding fault with our wooden Buildings, which consider London, as a Merchantile City, strong and beautiful, her manner of building agreeable to the jettyes, bay-windows, and returns in her streets; every part so engaged one with another, that though under several modes, yet like loving Citizens they hold hand in hand faster than brick or stone can do, and by their diversity of frontings do declare a freedom of our Subjects, that what they acquire by industry, may be bestowed at pleasure; not obliged to build so for the will of the Princes: Whereas the Citizens of Paris are so forced to uniformity, that their Structures seem to be only one continued magnificent wall loop-holed; whereas variety is more pleasant, if it be not so fantastic as to incommodate passage, height, or sight, as it is an undoubted Maxim in the Optics, that it lengthens your entertainment to a rapture: whereas in the French walk the eye in an instant is glutted with an identity, so that having seen one City or street, the eye is not urged to take her revels in another, all being so like to a primitive pattern of one livery, it chokes delight; as for magnificent Buildings, or Regalio's, Mounsieur forgets the Abbey of Westminster, the Royal Exchange, two such works of Architecture, that for their kind and use meet not with any parallel in France; though, I confess, the absolute tyranny of your Kings by the blood and sweat of the enslaved Peasantry have erected Palaces as it seemeth to me works of impertinency and leisure; but if you view further their Precordia, you will find the work like Satin pinked upon Canvas, being so furnished, that you would think them the Edifices of some former Inhabitants frighted from them, and possessed by Nomades or Scythians, that never knew the use of such civil Utensils: besides, our Kings have had larger theatres of Majesty than these; for whereas the French King is sedentary in Paris, our Kings have been like the Sun, not confined to a place, but enriching all places with their Justice and Glory: and so our Palaces are Beauties scattered and equally distributed to all places of the Nation: No King (for the extent of Earth) having more Residencies of Majesty than our English Potentates have had, so that if this City (of London) be considered as a Mercantile City, and place of trading, and the King's Court but as an issue of his favour to these Merchants: You will find he hath Grandeurs both Noble and sufficient. What a charm of Majesty is there of the Houses of the Nobility, fronting that Crystal and sweet Nymph (the Thames?) Besides, the City illustrated with the like in many places; together with the stately Structures belonging to Citizens, that, I am confident, cannot be paralleled by the whole trade of France or Europe.  
But I am bound to follow you, Monsieur, up and down from the Tavern to Church, then to the Shambles, and indeed it seems you visited things (like our Rustics) with a straightened heart, and a wide mouth, for now you bark most monstrously against our Religion and Professors of it: but seriously, had you minded any thing of Charity, you would not have given a character of us in our distempers, taking the present advantage of our being sick of Schism and Division: But I find you one of those Lucian scoffers, that rather than not exercise your froth, the Gods shall not scape your Animosity. I cannot like that spirit in a Frenchman, which would be scorned in a Heathen, or like a Jew spit upon the Saviour of the World, because not their insomniated Messiah: but Monsieur, procul hinc procul ite prophani. Yet I seriously assure you (dear Ladies) as touching their several worships, of these equivocal Christians, as he calls them, it is a newly forged blasphemy against the Truth, and I question not but his Godfather will one day congratulate his intelligence with a meritorious reward.  
Well now into the Tavern I must follow my Frenchman, who is my Ignis fatuus, leads me in no method or order, but what sees he now? Now a legion of adversities, as Shops, Smoak, Coaches, Sea-coal; would nor any wise man think this man mad, or tumbled lately out of some Chaos? But his chief regret is for the Sea-coal which he saith:   

Comp. 5. That if there be any Hell it is in this Vulcano on a foggy day.  
You may not well question a Hell, Monsieur, since in this piece of impiety and unhandsomeness, if you had your reward, you might easily perceive you are in the suburbs already: Methinks this was as strange an Adventure as the Knight Errants Windmills, and I suppose as much crazed your body; so that I wonder at your high valour, that dared Adventure, that eyelet-holed invaded body of yours, to such corroding fumes; but peradventure you are well sheathed with Brimstone and Butter against this infection, and you might have known, or I wonder your Lord informed you not, that the sulphur of our combustibles is a very great enemy to any Sacrifice made in favour of Venus, her Oblations being burnt upon Altars in our Suburbs.   

Comp. 6. But now if you will hear a loud one, mark his words well; I have, saith he, been in a spacious Church, where I could not discern the Minister for smoke.  
Ex ungue Leonem, one may judge of the rest of his Narrative by this notorious untruth: Did ever any sober man happen upon such an encounter? Surely this Gentleman's Optics were much eclipsed, or some drunken vapours had overclouded his mind, or else he had framed in his smoky Cranium such an imposture; and I wonder, Sir, you make not a Recantation for such gross insipid irregularity, since if our very Boys read but your Book, they would hoot at your Nation, indeed for your sweet-lye-composed wonder.   

Comp. 7. There is a number of houses where they sell Ale (a muddy Beverage) where the Gentlemen sit and spend much of their time in drinking it.  
As for that wholesome, pleasant, restorative, noble drink, the blessed offspring of Ceres; what impudence dares find fault, or cast a cloud over that gift of Nature? Since that if it could be conveyed, all the Earth would court it; witness the great esteem is had in all parts of this our English Liquor; so that one of your Countrymen Doctors saith, that there is no Liquor more increaseth the radical moisture, and preserves the natural heat; these two being the pillars of our decaying bodies. Now for any one to speak against the props of life, deserves to die, as his own enemy, under an unlamented death. But I am sure of this, that this tipple, and the grey Goose-wing, had almost torn all the feathers from the back of France: And certainly this Monsieur had some other reason than he produceth, to inveigh against this Liquor; it may be it holds no friendly correspondency with Venus' races, or else is not commodious (by reason of its fumes) for a Nation half drunk already.  
And now he appeals to his Lord (his confident) and as a Praeludium (knowing my Lord was no enemy to the French Beauties) to the prosecuting on his road of scandals. And now let all the world consider this unheard of impudence against a Sex, the whole host of Heroes court with Caresses due to their charms, Creatures (rather a Creation) framed by the indulgent hand of the Deity, as it were, cordials poured down from Heaven in compassion to our infirmities: You, even you (great Souls) his folly hath not blushed to asperse, with the like success, pardon the dirty expression, as the breath of a dunghill doth the Sun, which still shall shine as glorious as his infatuated mind shall be obscured with infamy.   

Comp. 8. That our Ladies suffer themselves to be treated in a Tavern, and drink crowned cups, & strain them through their smocks.  
This is an horrid impudence indeed: survey the whole universe, as their beauties excel, so, than these fair creatures in general, their lives; none whose lives are modester without ignominy, and freer without scandals, than our English Ladies.  
This Gentleman comes over with our last desultory french visitation, who had received so much virility by the posting of our Horses in the days of travel, that they (being in London) did that thirteenth labour to Hercules twelve, purging a stable of so much filth, that our suburbs shall sing an Io Pean to them hereafter: And truly those poor pieces of mortality bred an excellent French trade of it, enough to keep them till the like opportunity may so seasonably court them. And these are your Madamoseilles, who (Proteus like) changed their shape (to ingratiate their hire) into Ladies, Countess's, this beauty, and that beauty, till they had taken Excise of your limbs, gave you as good as you brought, left you lose in the hilts. These Mons. are your Ladies that drink crowned healths, and strained through their smocks; these are those Beauties that are so free; to such a Nation indeed it would be too great impiety for civil Ladies to neglect their noble souls, their proper persons, to court your deformities and diseases.   

Comp. 9 It is the afternoon business of the English Gentlemen only to drink and be drunk.  
Surely such as was your Females company, such was your Males; surely you raked Hell for these deboist unthrifty Cadets, for otherwise I never knew this to be a custom amongst civil Gentlemen. You say, after they have taken their repast with the Ladies they withdraw into another Room; certainly, Monsieur, this is a handsome separation, for the Gentlemen to carrese one with another, having sometimes Masculine Interests in hand; whereas you (thinking yourselves only born for the smock, and your ill-favoured Ladies of the placket) never separate your confused interests, knowing no distinction between Male and Female civilised interests, but only by the more retired managements of Nature; and certainly you would seem to be so fond of your Mopsa's, as not (out of a compliment) to give them time to disimbogue. As for our drinking healths or pledges, if you knew but the way to our custom, you will find it sprang from a laudable necessity at first, & was in earnest a duty performed really one friend for another, The Danes know it. But Monsieur, you do but fanatically trifle in all your discourse: As for our Cadets that visit the Gallows so frequently (as you say) I suppose yours in France are, or aught to be, so seriously employed, as their proper merit, since your Roberies are merely Massacres, such Cowards are ye that ye first shoot before you dare bid stand, they never taking purse before it is crimsoned reaking hot in blood, of such horrible actions, none but base cruel spirited Bravoes could be guilty; this one unmanly trick might enough satire against all the Grandeurs in France. As concerning our Gentry, I shall conclude, they come short of your follies, as much as you come short of their native gallantry.   

Comp. 10. The Ladies of England have designs at playing at Cards.  
Pray Monsieur, what's the end of play but ingenious designs, products of pure fancy, and ready managery? and if you would dishonour them for this, you may as well carp at their ingenuity: I suppose your Ladies will never prove guilty of showing so much of judgement, since for to be dextrous at play cannot possibly be the lot of French Ladies, for they want two necessary Virtues to it, Silence and Patience; which at what a distance these stand with them, let all the world judge.   

Comp. 11. That our Gentlemen and Ladies are defective in Courtship and Addresses.  
I confess if he means our Ladies want that impudence, which he calls Assurance, when it is as incompatible with modesty, as the Devils are with glorious Angels; or if you mean a forwardness to court the Male, to jet and garb it in company, like the Queen's quondam petit-dancer, which you call Address, I confess we will not vie with you; or if you mean by charmingdiscourse, a bold unlimited chattering, taking into cognizance ceremonious dissembled impertinencies, both in affront to Heaven and Earth; in these our wise Ladies come short I confess; but if you mean an Address, where Modesty keeps its decorum, betwixt impudent gallantry and bashful rusticity, this, this is the address of our incomparable Beauties, which outshine yours, as the greater Lights of the Firmament do the lesser. As for our Gallants the Gentlemen of this Nation, none I am sure are better able to manage an honourable and serious Entertainment with more cordial handsome magnificence of address than they, setting aside the mode of the high Rope, of our Frenchified English Apes. But when you shall pretend no child legitimate but your ill-faced bastards, and call that gallantry which swims uppermost in a giddy Cranium and foisted garb, a deformed posture against the wise product of Nature, a goatish concupiscence, a salacious approach, fit only for Satyrs; if, Monsieur, these be your Addresses, the Beasts of the Earth, the scum of rudeness, the excrements of Nature, may discipline you in such ways of reputed manners.  
As for our Aping you, it is confessed a few lose young souls, giddy like yourselves, are your Disciples; but we may thank our Alliance with you by civil contracts, which by your Locust-like swarming hath infected us at such a height, that we shall hardly claw it off without blood or smart.   

Comp. 12. To see the Balls so disposed by dancing Masters, and their boldness with the Ladies.  
Monsieur, We intent not Balls to make a meal of them, but as a condiment intended (a lafoy Vollee) as transient actions, only for a divertisement; yet want we not a decorum and a magnificency, witness those grand Masques in the King's days, which were thought to excel all of this nature in Europe, as much as our Plays do all your rhyming fools-bables; but your curtailed Intelligence, which hath brought you provision no further then from some petty Schools of children, neither well educated nor well practised.  
But, Monsieur, I hope these Answers may inform you into a Recantation, or else I must leave you scurrilous, and condemn your Pamphlet to accommodate for sundry uses and purposes instead of your weekly Gazettes, as Newly printed, and Newly come forth.   
FINIS.