-284 A. D. 1036. 



confiderable part of the electors, by whom his natural fon Harold was 

 made king of England. 



1 037-1 054 — Scotland was at this time governed by King Macbeth, 

 whom the flatterers of the pofterity of King Malcolm Kenmor have re- 

 prei'ented as a tyrant and an ufurper, whole hiflory Boyfe has turned 

 into a fairy tale, and Shakfpeare into a dramatic romance. The little 

 we know of him, which is rather more than we know of mofl: of his 

 predecefTors, entitles him to fome notice in this work. The original 

 part of the Latin Elegiac chronicle of the Scottifh kings fays, that Scot- 

 land enjoyed plentiful feafons during his reign ; and Wyntown, copy- 

 ing from it and fome other impartial antient record, fays, that 

 ' All hys tyme wes gret plente 

 ' Abowndand, bath on land and fe.' 



{IVyritown's Cronykil of Scotland, B. vi, c. 18, //. 47, 408.] 



The only influence a king of Scotland could pollibly have in pro- 

 ducing plenty by land and fea muft have been by mild and judicious 

 government, -by giving encouragement to agriculture, the prime fource 

 of wealth in every country, and to the fifhery, that inexhauftible fecond- 

 ary fund of wealth, wherewith bountiful Nature has furrounded Scot- 

 land. That Macbeth's government was beneficent, and eftablifhed in 

 the affedions of his people, notwithflanding the claims and efforts of 

 the rival family, appears from the comparatively-long duration and 

 tranquillity of his reign, and from his venturing to delegate his power 

 in order to make a journey to Rome in the year 1050. As an addition- 

 al proof of his merit I may adduce the abfurd obloquy thrown upon his 

 memory. That Scotland in his reign enjoyed fome foreign commerce, 

 the bafis of which was probably the fifliery, and that a balance of cafh 

 was even paid by the neighbouring nations, is fufficiently evident from 

 the great expenfe of his journey to Rome, where his charity to the poor 

 was confpicuous even in that general refort of wealthy pilgrims. [^Mari- 

 ani Chron. ad an. 1050.] 



1050 — About the middle of the eleventh century Sliafwig {Slefwik), 

 or Heithebu, is defcribed as a port of the Barbaric, Baltic, or Scythic, fea, 

 from which fhips failed to Slavonia, Semland, and even to Greece, by 

 which name we are furely to underfland Ruflia *. Ripa was a port on 

 the oppofite fide of Yutland, whence veflels failed to Frefia, Saxony, 

 and England. Arhufen, on the eaft fide of Yutland, was the port ot 

 departure for Fionia or Seland, Sconia, and Norway. \_Adami Bremens. 

 Lib. defitii Dani(e, p. 2, ed. 1629.] 



At this time, if Adam of Bremen [p. 17] was rightly informed, Swe- 

 den was full of foreign merchandize : but this account may be taken 

 with large allowance. 



• ' The name of Greeks was applied to the Ruflians even before tlicir converrtyn.' [_Ciilion, V. x> 

 f. 226, Note, where the original authors arc quoted. J ■♦ 



