THE TRUE STATE OF |1CELAND ad. 



1592. 

 should aske, What will you give me for it ? the begger 

 might answere : I have ten or foureteene children, I will 

 give you some one or more of them, &c. For this 

 rabble of beggers useth thus fondly to prate with 

 strangers. Now if there be any well disposed man, 

 who pitying the need and folly of these beggers, releaseth 

 them of one sonne, and doth for Gods sake by some 

 meanes provide for him in another countrey : doth the 

 begger therefore (v/ho together with his sonne being 

 ready to die for hunger and poverty, yeeldeth and com- 

 mitteth his sonne into the hands of a mercifull man) make 

 lesse account of his sonne then of his dogge ? Such works 

 of love and mercie have bene performed by many, aswell 

 Islanders themselves as strangers : one of which number 

 was that honourable man Accilius Julius, being sent by 

 the most gracious King of Denmarke into Icland in the 

 yere of our Lord 1552, who, as I have heard, tooke, and 

 carried with him into Denmarke fiftene poore boyes : 

 where afterward it was reported unto me, that by his 

 good meanes every one of them being bound to a 

 severall trade, proved good and thriftie men. 



What if some man be driven to that passe, that he 

 doth not onely sell his sonne, but not finding a chapman, 

 his owne selfe killeth and eateth him ? Examples of this 

 kinde be common, namely of the unwilling and forced 

 cruelty of parents towards their children, not being 

 pricked on through hate, or want of naturall affection, 

 but being compelled thereunto by urgent necessity. 

 Shall any man hereupon ground a generall reproch 

 against a whole nation ? We reade that in the siege of 

 Samaria, two mothers slew their sonnes, and eat them 

 sodden : 4. King. chap. 6. We reade in the siege of 

 Jerusalem, how lamentable the voice of that distressed 

 mother was, being about to kill her tender childe : My 

 sweet babe, sayth she (for I will report Eusebius owne 

 words, concerning this matter, though very common, that 

 the affection of a mother may appeare) borne to miserie 

 and mishap, for whom should I conveniently reserve thee 



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