[lentulusgracchus]

Because you can hardly pass judgement on a whole people if you only worked with a few of them in your own country, or at least not in their own environment.

Well, some Englishmen were observed closely in an Italian environment once -- was it Edmund Spenser? -- un inglese italianato e un diabolo incarnato.

Doesn't get much more derogatory than that, unless it's the old German college-boy canard that "Englishmen are dogs, and have tails". Sounds like the perfect invitation to a mooning.

[lentulusgracchus]

Erratum: was it Edmund Spenser?

Um, no -- Roger Ascham (d. 1568), tutor to Elizabeth I.