Its a fine drollery to sie a Frenchman conterfit the Castilian as he marches on his streets of Castile wt his castilian bever cockt, his hand in his syde, his march and paw[124] speaking pride it selfe. Who knows not also that mortell feud that the Castilian carries to the Portugueze and the Portuegueze reciprocally to them, and whence this I beseich you if not from the conceit they have of themselfe. This minds me of a pretty story I have heard them tell of a Castilian who at Lisbon came into a widows chop to buy something. She was sitting wt her daughter; the lass observing his habit crys to her mother, do not sell him nothing, mother, hees a Castilian, the mother chiding her daughter replied, whow dare you call the honest man a Castilian; on that tenet they hold that a Castilian cannot be a honest man. I leive you to ghesse whether the daughters wipe or the mothers was tartest.
Howell (as I remember) in a letter (its in the first volume, letter 43) he writes from Lyons, he findes the 2 rivers on which that brave city (for its situation yeelding to none in Europe, not to London tho' on lovely Thames) standes on, to wit the Rhosne and the Sosne, to be a pretty embleme of the diversity thats betuixt the humeurs of thess 2 mighty nations (France and Spain), who deservedly may be termed the 2 axletrees or poles on which the Microcosme of Europe turnes. Its theirfor wery much in the concernement of the rest of Europe to hold their 2 poles at a even balance, lest the one chancing at lenth to wieght doune the other there be no resisting of him, and we find ourselfes wise behind the hand.
Looking again on the Rhosne, which runes impetuously and wiolently, it mindes him of the French galliardness and lightness, or even inconstancy. Looking again on the Sosne, and finding it glid smoothly and calmly in its channel, its mindes him (he sayes) of the rigid gravity the Spaniard affected. And to speak the truth, this pride and selfe conceetedness is more legible in the Spaniard than in the French, yet if our experience abuse us not, we have discovered a great tincture of it in the French. That its not so palpable amongs them as in the Spaniard we impute to that naturall courtoisie and civility they are given to, that tempers it or hides it a little, being of the mind that if the Spaniard had a litle grain of the French pleasantness, the pride for which we tax them sould not be so apparent.