58 Thansactions. 



Fourth, in which the following stanza occurs, descriptive of the 

 south-western district : — 



" From the town of Ayr in Kyle to Galloway, 



Through Carrick pass unto Nithsdale, 



Where Dumfryse is a pretty town alway, 



And plentiful also of all good vitale, 



For all your army without any fail, 



So that, keeping this journey by my instruction, 



That realm ye shall bring in subjection. " 



The account of Eneas Sylvius Piccoloniini, a shady personage 

 who afterwards occupied the chair of St. Peter as Pope Pius the 

 Second, and who visited Scotland in the reign of the first James, 

 was then quoted to show the condition of the Scots at that time. 

 Piccolomini describes the common people as bold and forward in 

 temper, but poor, and destitute of all refinement. This attribu- 

 tion of jjoverty seems only to apply to their habitations and furniture, 

 &c., for he adds that they eat fish and flesh to repletion, although 

 bread only as a dainty. He, however, appears to have found the 

 inhabitants of the southern side of the Border in a much more 

 depressed condition as regards provision for daily wants, besides 

 living in constant and extreme terror of their northern neighbours. 

 A hundred years later Don Pedro de Ayala, a Spanish envoy, 

 describes the Scottish people as courageous, strong, quick, and 

 agile, handsome, and very hospitable ; the woman he thought the 

 handsomest in the world. The King, James the Fourth, who 

 shortly afterwards perished at Flodden, told Ayala that in thirty 

 hours he could assemble 120,000 horse. The Don describes the 

 towns and villages as populous, and the houses provided with 

 excellent doors and glazed windows. The narrative of Peder 

 Swave, a Dane, who visited Scotland in 1535, was referred to 

 chiefly on account of a curious legend connected with the York- 

 shire family of Constable. Stephen Penlin, the Frenchman whose 

 English experiences was detailed in a former paper, bears testi- 

 mony to the abundance and cheapness of provisions of all sorts in 

 Scotland during the regency of Mary of Lorraine. "It is to be 

 noted," he adds, " that there is nothing scarce in this country but 

 money." About the same time another Frenchman, Henry, Due 

 de Rohan, speaks of Scotland as a country truly generous in the 

 production of virtuous persons. Besides the nobility, whom he 

 fuuud full of civility and courtesy, the country, he says, possessed 

 a multitude of learned men and people, remarkable for courage 



I 



