CHOKOGRAPHIA : LOCAL INFLUENCES. 11 



He is my old acquaintance, and I desired him to tell me freely if the Irish Boyes had as good witte 

 as the English ; because some of our severe witts have ridiculed the Irish understanding. He 

 protested to me that he could not find but they had as good witts as the English ; but generally 

 speaking he found they had better memories. Dr. James Usher, Lord Primate of Ireland, had a 

 great memorie : Dr. Hayle (Dr. of the Chaire at Oxford) had a prodigious memorie : Sir Lleonell 

 Jenkins told me, from him, that he had read over all the Greeke fathers three times, and never 



noted them but with his naile. Mr Congreve, an excellent dramatique poet Mr. Jo. 



Dodwell hath also a great memorie, and Mr Tolet hathe a girle at Dublin, mathematique, who 



at eleven yeares old would solve questions in Algebra to admiration. Mr. Tolet told me he began 

 to instruct her at seven yeares of age. See the Journall of the R. Society de hoc. 



As to singing voyces wee have great diversity in severall counties of this nation ; and any one 

 may observe that generally in the rich vales they sing clearer than on the hills, where they labour 

 hard and breathe a sharp ayre. This difference is manifest between the vale of North Wilts and 

 the South. So in Somersettshire they generally sing well in the churches, their pipes are smoother. 

 In North Wilts the milkmayds sing as shrill and cleare as any swallow sitting on a berne: 



' So lowdly she did yerne, 

 Like any swallow sitting on a berne." CHAUCER. 



According to the severall sorts of eartli in England (and so all the world over) the Indigenaj are 

 respectively witty or dull, good or bad. 



To write a true account of the severall humours of our own countrey would be two sarcasticall 

 and offensive : this should be a secret whisper in the eare of a friend only, and I should super- 

 scribe here, 



" Pinge duos angues locus est sacer : extra 

 Mei ite." PERSIUS SATYR. 



Well then ! let these Memoires lye conceal'd as a sacred arcanum. 



In North Wiltshire, and like the vale of Gloucestershire (a dirty clayey country) the Indigenae, or 

 Aborigines, speake drawling ; they are phlegmatique, skins pale and livid, slow and dull, heavy of 

 spirit : hereabout is but little tillage or hard labour, they only milk the cowes and make cheese ; they 

 feed cliiefly on milke meates, which cooles their braines too much, and hurts their inventions. These 

 circumstances make them melancholy, contemplative, and malicious ; by consequence whereof come 

 more law suites out of North Wilts, at least double to the Southern parts. And by the same reason 

 they are generally more apt to be fanatiques: their persons are generally plump and feggy: 

 gallipot eies, and some black : but they are generally handsome enough. It is a woodsere country, 

 abounding much with sowre and austere plants, as sorrel, &c. which makes their humours sowre, 

 and fixes their spirits. In Malmesbury Hundred, &c. (y 6 wett clayy parts) there have ever been 

 reputed witches. 



On the downes, sc. the south part, where 'tis all upon tillage, and where the shepherds labour 

 hard, then* flesh is hard, their bodies strong : being weary after hard labour, they have not leisure to 

 read and contemplate of religion, but goe to bed to their rest, to rise betime the next morning to 

 their labour. 



" redit labor actus in orbem 



Agricolse." VIRGIL, ECLOG. 



