Scottish Life in the 17TH Century. 289 



Put f rae the land that they possessed ; 



Sair service has some herriet soon ; 

 For carrage als some has no rest, 



Tho' their ain work should ly undone. 



***** 



" Sic extortion and taxation 



Was never seen into this nation. 

 Taen of the commons of this land, 

 Of whilk some is left waste Hand, 



Because few may sic charges ueir ; 

 Mony has whips now in their hand 



That wont to have baith jak and speir." 



Again the poet complains of wasteful extravagance: — 



" Now we have mair, as is weill kend. 

 Nor our forebears had to spend, 

 But far less at the year's end ; 



And never has ane merrie day." 



Wonderfully like, too, an echo of the voice of John Knox 

 from the previous century. It is taken from his " Treatise on 

 Fasting," issued in 1565. 



" What reverence is had to God's messengers, and what 

 respect unto the poor, that now so multiply within this realm 

 (that the like hath seldom been seen) ? Though we will cease, 

 the stones will cry, and condemn us ; and yet what superfluity, 

 what vanity, what feasting, riotous banqueting have been, and 

 yet are used in court, country, and towns, although the tongues 

 of men dare not speak, yet we think the purses of some do feel, 

 and in their manner complain. 



" Let us consider what God craveth of us, but especially let 

 Earls, Lords, Barons, Burgesses, and Artificers consider by what 

 means their substances are increased. It is not enough to justify 

 us before God that civil laws cannot accuse us. Nay, brethren, 

 the eyes of our God pierce deeper than the laws of men can 

 stretch. The law of man cannot convince the Earl, the Lord, 

 the Baron, or Gentleman for the oppression of the poor labourers 

 of the ground, for his defence is ready : I may do with mine own 

 as best pleaseth me. The merchant is just enough in his own 

 conceit if before men he cannot be convicted of theft and deceit. 

 The artificer or craftsman thinketh himself free before God, 

 albeit that he neither work sufficient stuff nor yet sell it for 

 reasonable price. The world is evil, saith he, and how can men 

 live if they do not as others do ? And thus doth every man lean 

 upon the iniquity of another, and thinketh himself sufficiently 

 excused when that he meeteth craft with craft, and repulseth 

 back violence either with deceit or else with open injury." 



The Reformer and the Minstrel each in his own way be- 

 wailed the same evils as characteristic of his own age. 



Among the annual merrymakings of the period in Dumfries 

 were two days' horse races, for which the Town Council pro- 



