The Virginia Gazette

A foreign Nobleman's idea of ENGLAND.

ENGLAND is truly the Queen of islands, Neptune's seat of empire and inexhaustible arsenal. It is at the same time the Peru of Europe, the kingdom of Bacchus, the school of Epicurus, the academy of Venus, the country of Mars, the residence of Minerva, the prop of Holland, the scourge of France, the purgatory of the partisans of slavery, and the paradise of the promoters of liberty. The women are handsome, but then there is something insipid about them. Courage seems natural to the men, though it is carried to such excess as to border upon brutality. The talents of the mind are here in as great, or perhaps greater perfection, than in any other part of the globe; but they engender a kind of presumption, which greatly diminishes their value. Here it is that Fortune may be said to distribute her favours without reserve, but these islanders are ignorant of the art of enjoying them; the caprices of courte-sans are the only objects of their liberality. Their language is a whimsical mixture of almost every living tongue in Europe, but it has the advantage of being more copious and expressive than any other. In a word, this nation wants nothing to be happy but the knowledge of enjoying their felicity. The incessant uneasiness and extreme jealousy of the English for their rights and liberties have often immersed them in all the horrors of a civil war, which has brought them within a hair's breadth of losing them.

I have been three times in that kingdom, which furnished me with opportunities of being well acquainted with this people, and I may aver that it is the best calculated country in the world to charm a young man acquainted with the language, and who can afford the necessary expense; so that if the high road to hell is strewed with delight, it must necessarily be through England.