Jul. If you love me, let me hear a little.
Beam. We observed them to have much of the nature of our flies; they buzzed abroad a month or two in the summer, would venture about dog-days to take the air in the Park, but all the winter slept like dormice; and, if they ever appeared in public after Michaelmas, their faces shewed the difference betwixt their country and ours, for they look in Spain as if they were roasted, and in England as if they were sodden.
Jul. I'll not believe your description.
Fisc. Yet our observations of them in Holland are not much unlike it. I've known a great Don at the Hague, with the gentleman of his horse, his major domo, and two secretaries, all dine at four tables, on the quarters of a single pullet: The victuals of the under servants were weighed out in ounces, by the Don himself; with so much garlic in the other scale: A thin slice of bacon went through the family a week together; for it was daily put into the pot for pottage; was served in the midst of the dish at dinners, and taken out and weighed by the steward, at the end of every meal, to see how much it lost; till, at length, looking at it against the sun, it appeared transparent, and then he would have whipped it up, as his own fees, at a morsel; but that his lord barred the dice, and reckoned it to him for a part of his board wages.
Beam. In few words, madam, the general notion we had of them, was, that they were very frugal of their Spanish coin, and very liberal of their Neapolitan.
Jul. I see, gentlemen, you are in the way of rallying; therefore let me be no hinderance to your sport; do as much for one another as you have done for our nation. Pray, Mynheer Fiscal, what think you of the English?
Fisc. Oh, I have an honour for the country.
Beam. I beseech you, leave your ceremony; we can hear of our faults without choler; therefore speak of us with a true Amsterdam spirit, and do not spare us.
Fisc. Since you command me, sir, 'tis said of you, I know not how truly, that for your fishery at home, you're like dogs in the manger, you will neither manage it yourselves, nor permit your neighbours; so that for your sovereignty of the narrow seas, if the inhabitants of them, the herrings, were capable of being judges, they would certainly award it to the English, because they were then sure to live undisturbed, and quiet under you.
Beam. Very good; proceed, sir.