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for hire not love? Fie, fie, Sir Robert! Such was never our late Treasurer's bafe refpect, nor fhould be yours, nor

none: we are ashamed his fon should derogate!"

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""Twas in Sir Walter Ralegh's interest I".

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"Body o' me!" fwore her Grace, roundly, "Body o' me! Go, firrah, tell our Captain o' the Guard that, if we hold thee too crooked for a Baron, we esteem him too highly to fet him down at the tail of the nobility! Go to! Begone!" And the Royal Lady caft her cold grey eyes on the kneeling statesman, as he strove to rife, with a leer that very plainly faid, "Certainly there is a consent between the body and the mind; and where Nature erreth in the one, she ventureth in the other. Ubi peccat in uno, periclitatur in altero."

Then the Queen, who was wont to qualify the tedioufnefs of her ferious affairs with the sweet recreation of letters, either read or wrote fomething every day. And as she had,

a good while before, tranflated Salluft, "De Bello Jugurthino," so in those days fhe turned into the English tongue the greatest part of Horace, " De Arte Poetica," and a little book of Plutarch's, " De Curiofitate," writing them with her own hand and fairly anew, though the Rebellion in Ireland now flamed forth dangerously.

And there was bye-talk of Sir Walter Ralegh for Lord Deputy of Ireland. Cobham faying, "None fo fit." But Cecyl, "He is unworthy!" Now the Captain o' the Guard, having been across that channel more than once, had liefer live among his Caciques o' the Carib-Indies than be Governor over the Celts; and fo that project of Master Secretary failed alfo. 'Tis failure more than fuccefs profits a man. While the one maketh him foolhardy, careless the other teacheth him his own weakness, and the strength of his oppofites.

But against another rumour, the old hatred of Spain roused that patriotism which was only now and then dulled in Ralegh by his selfishness. Our Vice-Admiral fortifies the Coast of Cornwall, visiting his fleet; though indeed the Spaniard was more careful in the keeping of his ward ever since the Earl of Effex had broken that key of his dominions, Gades.

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"It feemeth to fimple and unlearned men that one may not go under the earth, but that he should fall from under towards the heaven. That may not be any more than that we fall towards heaven from the earth where we are. Yet, verily, in what part foever of the earth men dwell, either above or beneath, it feemeth always to them that they go more right than any other people. And as it feemeth to us that they be under us, fo it feemeth to them that we be under them."

OF THE EVIL CUSTOMS IN THE ISLE OF

LAMARY.-CHAP XVII.

TOLOMEY and the geographers confent, with all our statesmen, that Ireland lyeth to the weftward of Britain fome fixty to one hundred

and fixty miles.

"The inhabiters," faith one, following Mela, " are more than other nations uncivilized and without virtue; those who have even a little knowledge being wholly deftitute of piety."

Then Solinus calleth them "an inhospitable people," and "a warlike people. For the conquerors," faith he, " after drinking of the blood of their flain, daub their faces with the remainder." And again: "They know no diftinction between right and wrong. When a woman bringeth forth a male child, she is wont to place its first food on the point of her husband's weapon, thrusting it therewith into his tiny throat, with a prayer (as they call it), that the fword may end as it begins life."

Another will have it that, " for wholesomeness and serenity of climate, Ireland far furpasses Britain. The fnow," quoth he, "scarcely ever lies there above three days: nor no man makes hay in the fummer for winter's provision, nor yet builds ftables for his beasts of burden." "Tis to be enquired after whether our Venerable Bede, or yet that good Benedictine, Richard of Cirencester, were ever in the Ifle: or, if they whether they tafted not fome of its fubtleties; for the not making of hay while the fun fhines, favoureth of improvidence, as the exposure of their cattle tends to keep them poor and miferable. Here, too, is an old fable with a vengeance! "No reptiles be found there, and no fnake can live there; for, though often carried thither out of Britain,

Truth in and about Ireland.

55

fo foon as the ship shall come near fhore, the scent of the pure air reaching them, they presently die. Almost all things there be good against poison. We have known that, when some perfons have been bitten by ferpents, the very fcrapings of leaves of (holy) books brought out of Ireland, being put into water and given them to drink, have incontinently expelled the spreading venom, and affuaged the fwelling veins."

'Tis a strange thing you cannot find an historian speaking Truth of this land and her people! Either all is abuseful or all is flattery-honey or gall. One matter is to be noted : to wit, that from the particular these writers will ever argue the universal. As thus: In a straight, fome one eat of the rotten carcass of his horse; yet, having an English prisoner, let him free without ranfom. Now, your Saxon Monk records that the mere Irish are wont to glut over carrion; telling you not of his kind treatment of the captive. Then your Celt vaunteth how his victorious Chief enacts the host, fhowing hospitality to an enemy; not a word about the dead beast that furnisheth forth the banquet! So it is. All Irishmen are what some may be: and the Anglo-Irish truly, give a colour to the saying, " Hibernis ipfis Hiberniores.

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