[373.] Letter to his Son, May 10, O.S., 1748.
[374.] Letter to his Son, April 30, O.S., 1750.
[375.] Letters from Paris, Sept. 22, 26; Oct. 3, 6, 1765.
[376.] A Character of England, As it was lately presented in a Letter to a Noble Man of France, London, 1659.
[377.] See Voltaire, Lettres Philosophiques, tome ii. p. 272, ed. Gustave Lanson, Paris, 1909.
"The merest John Trot in a week you shall see
Bien poli, bien frizé, tout à fait un Marquis."
(Samuel Foote, Dramatic Works, vol. i. p. 47.)
The Hon. James Howard, The English Mounsieur, London, 1674; Sir George Etherege, Sir Fopling Flutter, Love in a Tub, Act III. Sc. iv.
The Abbe le Blanc on visiting England was very indignant at the representation of his countrymen on the London stage: he describes how, "Two actors came in, one dressed in the English manner very decently, and the other with black eye-brows, a riband an ell long under his chin, a big peruke immoderately powdered, and his nose all bedaubed with snuff. What Englishman could not know a Frenchman by this ridiculous picture?... But when it was found that the man thus equipped, being also laced down every seam of his coat, was nothing but a cook, the spectators were equally charmed and surprised. The author had taken care to make him speak all the impertinences he could devise.... There was a long criticism upon our manners, our customs and above all, our cookery. The excellence and virtues of English beef were cried up; the author maintained that it was owing to the quality of its juice that the English were so courageous, and had such a solidity of understanding which raised them above all the nations of Europe" (E. Smith, Foreign Visitors In England, London, 1889, pp. 193-4).
[379.] Samuel Foote, Dramatic Works, vol. i. p. 7.