188 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Sept. 8. 1855. 



This tract contains one hundred pages, preceded 

 by four pages addressed " To the Reader." 



4. " A Perfect Description of the People and Country 

 of Scotland. London : printed for J. S., i659." 



Your correspondent speaks of No. 3. as " a 

 satirical work by Owen Felltham." By whom 

 were the others written ? 



The " Description of Scotland" occupies but 

 twenty-one pages ; and it is so rich a specimen of 

 coarse and bitter vituperation, that it deserves a 

 niche in " N. & Q." as one of the " curiosities of 

 literature." I am sure that no native of the 

 *' Land o' Cakes" will take offence at its insertion. 

 To do so, indeed, would show less sense, and a 

 more morbid sensitiveness, than we usually ascribe 

 to our brethren of the north, 



" A Perfect Description of Scotland. 



" Fir.st for the country, I must confess it is good for 

 those that possess it, and too bad for others to be at the 

 charge to conquer it. The aire might be wholesome, but 

 for the stinking people tiiat inhabit it. The ground might 

 be fruitfall, had they wit to manure it. 



" Their beasts be generally smal, women only excepted, 

 of which sort there are none greater in the whole world. 

 There is great store of fowl too, as foul houses, foul 

 sheets, foul linnen, foul dishes and pots, foul trenchers and 

 napkins, with which sort we have bin forced to say, as 

 the children did with their fowl in the wilderness. They 

 have good store of fish too, and good for those that can 

 eat it raw; but if it come once into their hands, it is 

 worse the if it were three days old. For their butter and 

 cheese, I will not meddle withall at this time, nor no man 

 «lse at any time that loves his life. 



" They have great store of deer ; but they are so far 

 from the place where I have been, that I had rather be- 

 lieve, then go to disprove it. I confesse, all the deer I 

 met withall, was dear lodgings, dear horse-meat, and dear 

 tobaco and English beer. 



" As for fruit, for their grandsire Adam's sake, they 

 never planted any ; and for other trees, had Christ been 

 betraj'edin this countrey (as doubtlesse he should, had he 

 come as a stranger), Judas had sooner found the grace of 

 repentance, then a tree to hang himself on. 



" They have many hills, wherein they say is much 

 treasure, but they shew none of it. Nature hath onely 

 discovered to them some mines of coal, to shew to what 

 end he created them. 



" I see little grasse, but in their pottage. The thistle 

 is not given them of nought, for it is the fairest flower in 

 their garden. The word hay is heathen Greek unto them ; 

 neither man nor beast knows what it means. 



" Corn is reasonable plenty at this time ; for since they 

 heard of the king's coming, it hath been as unlawful! for 

 the common people to eate wheate, as it was in the old 

 time for any, but the priests, to eat shew-bread. They 

 prayed much for his comming, and long fasted for his 

 welfare ; but in the more plainer sense, that he might fare 

 the better, all his followers were welcome, but his guard; 

 for those, they say, are like Pharaoh's leane kine, and 

 threaten dearth wheresoever they come. Thej' could per- 

 swade the footmen, that oaten-cakes would make them 

 long-winded; and the children of the chappel they have 

 brought to eat of them, for the maintenance of their voyces. 



" They say our cooks are too sawcy ; and for grooms and 

 coachmen, they wish them to give to their horses, no worse 

 then they eat themselves ; they commend the brave minds 



No. 306.] 



of the pentioners, and the gentlemen of the bed-chamher, 

 which choose rather to go to taverns then to be always 

 eating of the king's provision ; they likewise do commend 

 the yeomen of the buttery and cellar, for their readiness 

 and silence, in that they will hear twenty knocks before 

 they will answer one. They perswade the trumpetters, 

 that fasting is good for men of that quality ; for emptiness, 

 they say, causes wind, and wind causes a trumpet to 

 sound well. 



" The bringing of heraulds, they say, was a needless 

 charge, they all know their pedegrees wel enough ; and 

 the harbengers might have been spared, sithence they 

 brought so manj- beds with them ; and of two evils, since 

 the least should be chosen, they wish the beds might 

 remain with tiiem, and poor harbengers keep their places, 

 and do their office, as they return. His hangings they 

 desire might likewise be left as reliques, to put them in 

 mind of His Majesty; and they promise to dispense with 

 the wooden images; but for those graven images in his 

 new beautified chappell, thej' threaten to pull down soon 

 after his departure, and to make of them a burnt-offering, 

 to appease the indignation they imagined conceived 

 against them in the brest of the Almighty, for suffering 

 such idolatry to enter into their kingdom. The organ, I 

 think, will find mercy, because (as they say) there is some 

 affinity between them and the bag-pipes. 



*' The shipper that brought the singing men, with their 

 papistical vestments, complains that he hath been much 

 troubled with a strange singing in his head, ever since 

 they came aboard his ship. For remedy whereof the 

 parson of the parish hath perswaded him to sell that 

 prophane vessel, and to distribute the money among the 

 faithfull brethren. 



" For his Majestie's entertainment, I must needs inge- 

 nuously confess, he was received into the parish of Eden- 

 burg (for a city I cannot call it) with great shouts of joy, 

 but no shews of charge for pageants; they hold them 

 idolatrous things, and not fit to be used in so reformed a 

 place ; from the Castle they gave him some pieces of ord- 

 nance, which surely he gave them, since he was King of 

 England. And at the entrance of the town, they pre- 

 sented him with a golden bason, which was carried before 

 him on men's shoulders to his palace, I think, from 

 whence it came. His Majesty was conveyed by the 

 younkers of the town, which were some hundred hal- 

 berds (dearly shall they rue it, in regard of the charge), 

 to the Cross, and so to the High Church, where the only 

 bell they had stood on tip-toe to behold his sweet face ; 

 where I must entreate you to spare him, for an hour I lost 

 him. 



" In the mean time to report the speeches of the people, 

 concerning his never exampled entertainment, were to 

 make his discourse too tedious unto you, as the sermon 

 was to those that were constrained to endure it. After 

 the preachment, he was conducted by the same halberds 

 unto his palace, of which I forbear to speak, because it is 

 a place sanctified by His divine Majesty, onely I wish it 

 had been better walled, for my friends' sake that waited 

 on him. 



" Now I will begin briefly to ^eak of the people, ac- 

 cording to their degrees and qualities ; for the Lords 

 Spiritual, they may well be termed so indeed: for they 

 are neither fish nor flesh, but what it shall please their 

 earthly god, the king, to make them. Obedience is 

 better then sacrifice, and therefore they make a mock at 

 martyrdom, saying. That Christ was to dy for them, 

 and not they for him. They will rather subscribe then 

 surrender, and rather dispense with smal things then 

 trouble themselves with great disputation ; they will 

 rather acknowledge the king to be their head then want 

 wherewith to pamper their bodies. 



