Thus from a mixture of all kinds began,
That het'rogeneous thing, an Englishman:
In eager rapes, and furious lust begot
Betwixt a painted Britain and a Scot.
Whose gend'ring off-spring quickly learn'd to bow,
And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough:
From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came,
With neither name, nor nation, speech nor fame.
In whose hot veins new mixtures quickly ran,
Infus'd betwixt a Saxon and a Dane
While their rank daughters, to their parents just,
Receiv'd all nations with promiscuous lust.
This nauseous brood directly did contain
The well-extracted blood of Englishmen.
from The True-Born Englishman by Daniel Defoe (1701). He was also the author of one of the earliest British novels Robinson Crusoe.
Origins of Man |
"I only infer that an Englishman, of all men, ought not to despise
foreigners as such, and I think the inference is just, since what they
are to-day, we were yesterday, and to-morrow they will be like us. If
foreigners misbehave in their several stations and employments, I have
nothing to do with that; the laws are open to punish them equally with
natives, and let them have no favour. But when I see the town full of
lampoons and invectives against Dutchmen only because they are
foreigners, and the King reproached and insulted by insolent pedants,
and ballad-making poets for employing foreigners, and for being a
foreigner himself, I confess myself moved by it to remind our nation of
their own original, thereby to let them see what a banter is put upon
ourselves in it, since, speaking of Englishmen ab origine, we are really all foreigners ourselves."
See, Daniel Defoe's Explanatory Preface in A true collection of the writings of the author of the True Born English-man (1703)
Another version of the Englishman represents him as a Lord of the Country; as a Colonial Master; as a Trader; as a Slave Owner.
Andrew Selkirk - Robinson Crusoe & Man Friday |
Two Englishmen dressed for hunting |
No comments:
Post a Comment