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Publications of the Scottish History Society, Volume 36

by Lord John Lauder Fountainhall · English · Gutenberg #12930 · 881,682 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Publications of the Scottish History Society, Volume 36

Author: Lord John Lauder Fountainhall


        
Release date: July 17, 2004 [eBook #12930]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUBLICATIONS OF THE SCOTTISH HISTORY SOCIETY, VOLUME 36 ***

PUBLICATIONS OF THE SCOTTISH HISTORY SOCIETY, VOLUME XXXVI

LAUDER OF FOUNTAINHALL'S JOURNALS

MAY 1900




[Illustration: LORD FOUNTAINHALL.]




JOURNALS OF SIR JOHN LAUDER LORD FOUNTAINHALL
WITH HIS OBSERVATIONS ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS
AND OTHER MEMORANDA

1665-1676

Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by
DONALD CRAWFORD
Sheriff of Aberdeen, Kincardine, and Banff




[Illustration: SIR JOHN LAUDER, FIRST BARONET.
(Lord Fountainhall's Father.)]




CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION

JOURNALS:--

I

Journal in France, 1665-1667,


II

1. Notes of Journeys in London. Oxford, and Scotland, 1667-1670,

2. Notes of Journeys in Scotland, 1671-1672,

3. Chronicle of events connected with the Court of Session, 1668-1676,

4. Observations on Public Affairs, 1669-1670,


III

APPENDIX

  i. Accounts, 1670-1675,

 ii. Catalogue of Books, 1667-1679,

iii. Letter of Lauder to his Son,




PORTRAITS


  I. LORD FOUNTAINHALL

 II. SIR JOHN LAUDER, first Baronet, Lord Fountainhall's father

III. JANET RAMSAY, first wife of Lord Fountainhall

 IV. SIR ANDREW RAMSAY, Lord Abbotshall


All reproduced from pictures in the possession of Lady Anne Dick Lauder.




INTRODUCTION


THE MANUSCRIPTS

There are here printed two manuscripts by Sir John Lauder, Lord
Fountainhall, and portions of another. The first[1] is a kind of journal,
though it was not written up day by day, containing a narrative of his
journey to France and his residence at Orleans and Poictiers, when he was
sent abroad by his father at the age of nineteen to study law in foreign
schools in preparation for the bar. It also includes an account of his
expenses during the whole period of his absence from Scotland. The
second,[2] though a small volume, contains several distinct portions. There
are narratives of visits to London and Oxford on his way home from abroad,
his journey returning to Scotland, and some short expeditions in Scotland
in the immediately following years, observations on public affairs in 1669-
70, and a chronicle of events connected with the Court of Session from 1668
to 1676; also at the other end of the volume some accounts of expenses. The
third[3] may be described as a commonplace book, for the most part written
during the first years of his practice at the bar and his early married
life, but it also contains some notes of travel in Fife, the Lothians, and
the Merse in continuation of those in MS. H., and a list of the books which
he bought and their prices, brought down to a late period of his life.
These manuscripts have been kindly made available to the Scottish History
Society by the owners. The first is in the Library of the University of
Edinburgh. The second is the property of the late Sir William Fraser's
trustees. The third has been lent by Sir Thomas North Dick Lauder,
Fountainhall's descendant and representative.

    [1] Referred to as MS. X.

    [2] Marked by Fountainhall H.

    [3] Marked by Fountainhall K.

It was Lord Fountainhalls practice, during his whole life, to record in
notebooks public events, and his observations upon them, legal decisions,
and private memoranda. He kept several series of notebooks concurrently
with great diligence and method. In all of those which have been preserved
there is more or less matter of value to the student of history. But at his
death his library was sold by public auction. The MSS. were dispersed,
though their existence and value was known to some of his
contemporaries.[4] Some are lost, in particular the series of _Historical
Observes_, 1660-1680, which, judging from the sequel, which has been
preserved and printed by the Bannatyne Club, would have been of great
value. According to tradition the greater part of what has been recovered
was found in a snuff-shop by Mr. Crosby the lawyer, the supposed original
of Scott's Pleydell, and purchased at the sale of his books after his death
by the Faculty of Advocates.[5]

    [4] Preface to Forbes's _Journal of the Session_, Edinburgh, 1714.

    [5] MS. Genealogical Roll of the Family of Lauder by the late Sir
        Thomas Dick Lauder, in possession of Sir T.N. Dick Lauder.

Eight volumes came into the possession of the Faculty of Advocates, and
under their auspices two folio volumes of legal decisions from 1678 to 1712
were published in 1759 and 1761.[6] In 1837 the Bannatyne Club printed _The
Historical Observes_, 1680-1686, a complete MS. in the Advocates' Library,
and in 1848 they printed two volumes of _Historical Notices_, 1661-1688.
These are after 1678 selections from the same MSS. from which the folio of
1759 was compiled, and the additions to the text of the folio are not
numerous, though the historical matter, which was buried among the legal
decisions, is presented in a more convenient form. But from 1661 to 1678
(about half of vol. i.) and especially from 1670 (for the previous entries
occupy only a few pages) the notices are all new and many of them of
considerable interest. In printing these volumes, which I believe are
acknowledged to contain some of the best material for the history of
Scotland at the time, the Bannatyne Club carried out a design which had
been long cherished by the late Sir Thomas Dick Lauder,[7] though he did
not live to see its complete fulfilment, and he was helped in his efforts
by Sir Walter Scott. The story[8] is worth telling more fully than has yet
been done. In the winter of 1813-14 Sir Thomas, then a young man, met Sir
Walter at a dinner-party. Sir Walter expressed his regret 'that something
had not been done towards publishing the curious matter in Lord
Fountainhall's MSS.,'[9] and urged Sir Thomas to undertake the task. In
1815 Sir Thomas wrote to Scott asking about a box in the Advocates' Library
believed to contain MSS. of Fountainhalls. Sir Walter replied as follows:--

    [6] See Mr. David Laing's Preface to the _Historical Notices_,
        p. xx, Bannatyne Club.

    [7] Author of _The Moray Floods, The Wolf of Badenoch_, and other
        well-known books.

    [8] The original correspondence was bound up by Sir Thomas in a volume
        along with Mylne's book (see _infra_), and is in the
        possession of Sir T.N. Dick Lauder.

    [9] Letter, Sir T.D. Lauder to Sir W. Scott, 22nd May 1822,
        _infra_.

  'Dear Sir,--I am honoured with your letter, and should have been
  particularly happy in an opportunity of being useful in assisting a
  compleat edition of Lord Fountainhall's interesting manuscripts. But I
  do not know of any in the Advocates' Library but those which you
  mention. I think it likely I may have mentioned that a large chest
  belonging to the family of another great Scottish lawyer, Sir James
  Skene of Curriehill, was in our Library and had never been examined. But
  I could only have been led to speak of this from the similarity of the
  subject, not from supposing that any of Lord Fountainhall's papers could
  possibly be deposited there. I am very glad to hear you are
  busying yourself with a task which will throw most important light upon
  the history of Scotland, and am, with regard, dear sir, your most obedt.
  servant,

  'WALTER SCOTT.
  '_Edinr., 19 February 1815._'

After a further interchange of letters in 1816 the matter slumbered till
1822 when there appeared a volume entitled _Chronological Notes of Scottish
Affairs from 1680 till 1701, being chiefly taken from the Diary of Lord
Fountainhall_ (Constable, 1822), with a preface by Sir Walter Scott, who
had evidently forgotten his correspondence with Sir Thomas.[10] The volume
in reality contained a selection, comparatively small, from Fountainhall's
notebooks in the Advocates' Library, with copious interpolations by the
author, Robert Mylne (who died in 1747), not distinguished from the
authentic text of the notes, and greatly misrepresenting Fountainhall's
opinions. The next stage in the correspondence may be given in Sir Thomas's
own words:--

    [10] The preface and Mylne's interpolations are appended to Mr. Laing's
        preface to the _Historical Notices_.

  'Having been much astonished to learn, from a perusal of the foregoing
  review,[11] that Sir Walter Scott had stolen a march on me, and
  published a Manuscript of Lord Fountainhall's, at the very time when he
  had reason to believe me engaged in the work, and that by his own
  suggestion, and being above all things surprised that he had not thought
  it proper to acquaint me with his intention before carrying it into
  effect, I sat down and wrote to him the following letter, in which,
  being aware how much he who I was addressing was to be considered as a
  sort of privileged person in literary matters, I took special care to
  give no offence, to write calmly, and to confine myself to such a simple
  statement of the facts as might bring a blush into his face without
  exciting the smallest angry feeling. I hoped, too, that I might prevail
  on him, as some atonement for his sins, to lend a helping hand to bring
  forth the real work of Lord Fountainhall in a proper style.'

    [11] In Constable's Magazine. See _infra_.

  To SIR WALTER SCOTT OF ABBOTSFORD, BARONET.

  '_Relugas, near Forres_,
  _22nd May 1822_.

  'DEAR SIR,--From _Constable's Magazine_ for last month, which has this
  moment fallen into my hands, I learn, for the first time, with some
  surprise, but with much greater delight than mortification, that you
  have condescended to become the Editor of a portion of my Ancestor Lord
  Fountainhall's MSS. From this I am led to believe, that the circumstance
  of my having been engaged in the work since 1814 must have escaped your
  recollection, otherwise I think you would have informed me of _your_
  intention or inquired into _mine_. In the winter 1813-14, I had the
  happiness of meeting you at the table of our mutual friend, Mr. Pringle
  of Yair, where you expressed regret to me that something had not been
  done towards publishing the curious matter contained in Lord
  Fountainhall's MSS., urging me at the same time to undertake the task.
  Having also soon afterwards been pressed to perform this duty by Mr.
  Thomas Thomson, Mr. Napier, and several other literary friends, I was
  led to begin it, and Lord Meadowbank having presented my petition to the
  Dean and Faculty of Advocates, they were so liberal as to permit me to
  have the use of the MSS. in succession at Fountainhall, where I then was
  on a visit to my Father, and where I transcribed everything fit for my
  purpose. Emboldened by the remembrance of what passed in conversation
  with you at Mr. Pringle's, I took the liberty of trespassing on you in a
  letter dated 18th February 1815, to beg you would inform me whether you
  knew of the existence of any of Lord Fountainhall's MSS. besides the
  eight Folio volumes I had then examined. You did me the honor to write
  me an immediate reply, in which you stated that you knew of no other
  MSS. but those I had mentioned, and you conclude by saying, that you
  were glad to hear that I was busying myself in a task which would throw
  much light on the history of Scotland. In May 1816, whilst engaged here
  in arranging and retranscribing the materials I had collected for the
  work in the order of a Journal, I met with a little difficulty about the
  word FORRES, which the sense of the passage led me to read FORREST,
  meaning ETTRICK FORREST. Knowing that you were the best source from
  which true information on such subjects was to be drawn, and presuming
  upon your former kindness, I again addressed you, 23rd May 1816, begging
  to know whether I was right in my conjecture. To this I received a very
  polite answer in course of post, in which you express great pleasure in
  complying with my request, and are so obliging as to conclude with the
  assurance that at any time you will be happy to elucidate my researches
  into my ancestors' curious and most valuable Manuscripts with such hints
  as your local knowledge may supply.

  'Since the period to which I have just alluded, I have continued to
  prosecute the work, but only at intervals, having met with frequent
  interruptions, among which I may mention an excursion to Italy; and
  after having finished about two-thirds of it in my own handwriting, it
  is only now that I have been able to complete it, by the aid of an
  amanuensis. I do not much wonder that, employed as you are in
  administering fresh draughts of enjoyment from the exhaustless spring of
  your genius to the ever-increasing thirst of a delighted public, you
  should have forgotten my humble labours. But whilst I regret that they
  should have been so forgotten, inasmuch as they might have contributed
  to aid or lessen yours, I beg to assure you, that every other feeling is
  absorbed in that of the satisfaction I am now impressed with in learning
  that you have taken Lord Fountainhall under your fostering care, as I am
  well aware that, independent of the honor done him and his family by his
  name being coupled with that of Sir Walter Scott, there does not now,
  and perhaps there never will, exist any individual who could elucidate
  him so happily as your high talents and your deep research in the
  historical anecdote of your country must enable you to do. I am
  naturally very desirous to see your publication, of which I cannot
  procure a copy from the booksellers here. I should not otherwise have
  intruded on you until I had seen the book, as I am at present ignorant
  how far it clashes or agrees with the plan of the work I have prepared.
  As business calls me to Edinburgh, I can now have no opportunity of
  perusing it before my departure, as I leave this on Tuesday the 28th
  instant I observe, however, with great gratification, from a quotation
  in the _Magazine_ from your preface, that you hold out hopes of a
  farther publication, and I am consequently anxious to avail myself of
  being in Edinburgh to have the honor of an interview with you, that I
  may avoid any injudicious interference with your undertaking, and rather
  go hand in hand with you in promoting it. As I shall be detained on the
  road, I shall not be in Edinburgh until the evening of Friday the 31st,
  and my present intention is to remain in town only Saturday and Sunday,
  unless unavoidable circumstances occur to prevent my leaving it on the
  Monday. If you could make it convenient to grant me an audience on
  either of the days I have mentioned, viz., on Saturday, or Sunday, the
  1st or 2nd of June, you would very much oblige me, and it will be a
  further favor if you will have a note lying for me at Mrs. President
  Blair's, or at my Agent, Mr. Macbean's, 11 Charlotte Square, stating the
  precise time when you can most conveniently receive me, that I may not
  be so unfortunate as to call on you unseasonably. With the highest
  respect, and with very great regard, I have the honor to be, dear sir,
  very truly yours,

  THOS. DICK LAUDER.'

To this Sir Walter replied:--

  'MY DEAR SIR,--I am sorry you could for a moment think that in printing
  rather than publishing Lord Fountainhall's Notes or rather Mr. Milne's,
  for that honest gentleman had taken the superfluous trouble to write the
  whole book anew, I meant to interfere with your valuable and extensive
  projected work. I mentioned in the advertisement that you were engaged
  in writing the life of Lord Fountainhall, and therefore declined saying
  anything on the subject, and I must add that I always conceived it was
  his life you meant to publish and not his works. I am very happy you
  entertain the latter intention, for a great deal of historical matter
  exists in the manuscript copy of the collection of decisions which has
  been omitted by the publishers, whose object was only to collect the law
  reports and who appear in the latter volume entirely to have disregarded
  all other information. There is also somewhere in the Advocates'
  Library, but now mislaid, a very curious letter of Lord Fountainhall on
  the Revolution, and so very many other remains of his that I would fain
  hope your work will suffer nothing by my anticipation, which I assure
  you would never have taken place had I conceived those Notes fell within
  your plan. The fact was that the letter on the Revolution was mislaid
  and the little Ma[nuscript] having disappeared also, though it was
  afterwards recovered, it seemed to me worth while to have it put in a
  printed shape for the sake of preservation, and as only one hundred
  copies were printed, I hope it will rather excite than gratify curiosity
  on the subject of Lord Fountainhall. I expected to see you before I
  should have thought of publishing the Letter on the Revolution, and
  hoped to whet your almost blunted purpose about doing that and some
  other things yourself. I think a selection from the Decisions just on
  the contrary principle which was naturally enough adopted by the former
  publishers, rejected[12] the law that is and retaining the history,
  would be highly interesting. I am sure you are entitled to expect[13] on
  all accounts and not interruption from me in a task so honorable, and I
  hope you will spare me a day in town to talk the old Judge's affairs
  over. The history of the Bass should be a curious one. You are of course
  aware of the anecdote of one of your ancestors insisting on having the
  "auld craig back again."

  'Constable undertook to forward to you a copy of the Notes with my
  respects, and it adds to my piggish behaviour that I see he had omitted
  it. I will cause him send it by the Ferry Carrier.

  'I beg to assure you that I am particularly sensible of the kind and
  accomodating view you have taken of this matter, in which I am sensible
  I acted very thoughtlessly because it would have been easy to have
  written to enquire into your intentions. Indeed I intended to do so, but
  the thing had gone out of my head. I leave Edin'r in July, should you
  come after the 12 of that month may I hope to see you at Abbotsford,
  which would be very agreeable, but if you keep your purpose of being
  here in the beginning of June I hope you will calculate on dining here
  on Sunday 2d at five o'clock. I will get Sharpe to meet you who knows
  more about L'd Fountainhall than any one.--I am with great penitence,
  dear Sir Thomas, your very faithful humble servant,

  'WALTER SCOTT.'

    [12] _sic_ for rejecting.

    [13] A word is omitted, perhaps 'assistance.'

'N.B.--The foregoing letter from Sir Walter, written in answer to mine of
the 25th May,[14] sufficiently shows the extent of the dilemma he found
himself thrown into. It is full of strange contradictions. He talks of
"_printing_ rather than _publishing_" a book which was _publickly_
advertised _and publickly_ sold. He assures me that he believed that it was
_Fountainhall's Life_, and not his _works_ I meant to publish, though the
former part of the correspondence between us must have made him fully aware
that it was _the works_ I had in view; and he unwittingly proves to me
immediately afterwards that he had not altogether forgotten that it was
_the works_ I had taken in hand to publish, for he says, "I expected to see
you before I should have thought of publishing the letter on the
Revolution, and hoped to _whet your almost blunted purpose about doing that
and some_ other things yourself." And again afterwards--"it would have been
easy to have written to enquire into your intentions, indeed _I intended to
do so_, but the thing had gone out of my head." Why did you intend to write
to me, Sir Walter, about intentions which you have said you were
unconscious had any existence? But who can dare to be angry with Sir Walter
Scott? Who could be savage enough to be angry with the meanest individual
who could write with so much good nature and bonhommie as he displays in
his letter? Had one particle of angry feeling lurked in my bosom against
him, I should have merited scourging. My answer was as follows....'

    [14] _sic_ for 22nd May.

Sir Thomas was unable to accept Sir Walter's invitation, but proposed to
call on him, and received the following reply:--

  'My dear Sir Thomas,--I am much mortified at finding that by a
  peremptory message from my builder at Abbotsford, who is erecting an
  addition to my house, I must set out there to-morrow at twelve. But we
  must meet for all that, and I hope you will do me the honour to
  breakfast here, though at the unchristian hour of _Nine o'clock_, and if
  you come as soon after eight as you will, you will find me ready to
  receive you. I mention this because I must be in the court at _Ten_. I
  hope this will suit you till time permits a longer interview. I shall
  therefore expect you accordingly.--Yours very sincerely,

  WALTER SCOTT.

  '_Castle Street, Friday_'

  'It gives me sincere regret that this unexpected news[15] prevents my
  having the pleasure of receiving you on Monday.'

    [15] This word doubtful. It is indistinctly written.

Sir Thomas proceeds in his narrative:--

'N.B.--I kept my appointment accurately to the hour and minute, and found
the Great Unknown dashing off long foolscap sheets of what was soon to
interest the eyes, and the minds, and the hearts of the whole reading
world; preparing a literary food for the voracious maw of the many-headed
monster, every mouth of which was gaping wide in expectation of it. He
received me most kindly, though I could not help secretly grudging, more
than I have no doubt he did, every moment of the time he so good-naturedly
sacrificed to me. He repeated in words, and, if possible, in stronger
terms, the apologies contained in his letter. I offered him my Manuscript
and my humble services. He insisted that he would not rob me of the fruits
of my pious labours. "As I know something of publishing," said he, with an
intelligent smile on his countenance, "I shall be able to give you some
assistance and advice as to how to bring the work properly and respectably
out." I thanked him, and ventured to entreat that he would add to the
obligation he was laying me under by giving me a few notes to the proposed
publication. In short, the result of an hour's conversation was that he
undertook to arrange everything about the publication with a bookseller,
and to give me the notes I asked, and, in fact, to do everything in his
power to assist me, and I left him with very great regret that a matter of
business prevented me from accepting of his pressing invitation to
breakfast. Before parting, he wrote for me the ensuing letter to Mr.
Kirkpatrick Sharpe, which I was deprived of an opportunity of delivering by
the shortness of my visit to Edinburgh.'

Sir Thomas soon afterwards completed his transcript, and on 7th June 1823
he wrote:--

  '_Relugas, near Forres,
  7th June_ 1823.

  'MY DEAR SIR WALTER,--Can you pardon me for thus troubling you, in order
  to have my curiosity satisfied about our old friend Fountainhall, whose
  work I gave you in July last. I hope you received the remainder of the
  Manuscript in October from my agent, Mr. Macbean. If you can spare time
  to say, in a single line, what is doing about him, you will confer a
  great obligation, on yours very faithfully,

  T.D. LAUDER.'

Sir Walter replied:--

  'MY DEAR SIR,--We have not taken any steps about our venerable friend
  and your predecessor, whose manuscript is lying safe in my hands.
  Constable has been in London this long time, and is still there, and
  Cadell does not seem willingly to embark in any enterprize of
  consequence just now. We have set on foot a sort [of] Scottish Roxburgh
  Club[16] here for publishing curiosities of Scottish Literature, but
  Fountainhall would be a work rather too heavy for our limited funds,
  although few can be concerned which would come more legitimately under
  the purpose of our association, which is made in order to rescue from
  the chance of destruction the documents most essential to the history
  and literature of Scotland.

  'We are having a meeting on the 4th July, when I will table the subject,
  and if we possibly can assist in bringing out the worthy Judge in good
  stile, we will be most ready to co-operate with your pious endeavours to
  that effect. I should wish to hear from you before that time what you
  would wish to be done in the matter respecting the size, number of the
  impression, and so forth. Whatever lies in my limited power will be
  gladly contributed by, dear sir, your very faithful servant,

  'WALTER SCOTT.
  _'Castle Street, 18 June 1823.'_

    [16] The Bannatyne Club was instituted on 15th February 1823. Its
        object was to print works of the history, topography, poetry, and
        miscellaneous literature of Scotland in former times. Sir Walter
        Scott was president till his death. The Club's last meeting was in
        1861, but there were some publications till 1867.

And in answer to further inquiry he again wrote on 10th July 1823:--

  'MY DEAR SIR THOMAS,--You are too easily alarmed about the fate of your
  ancestors. I did not mean it would not be published--far less that I
  would not do all in my power to advance the publication--but only that
  the size and probable expense of the work, with the limited sale for
  articles of literature only interesting to the Scottish Antiquaries,
  rendered the Booksellers less willing to adopt the proposal than they
  seemed at first. However I thought it as well to wait until Constable
  himself came down from London, as I had only spoken with his partner,
  and I have since seen him, and find him well disposed to the
  undertaking. I told him I would give with the greatest pleasure any
  assistance in my power in the way of historical illustration, and that I
  concluded that you, to whom the work unquestionably belongs, would
  contribute a life of the venerable Lawyer and some account of his
  family. Mr. Thomson has promised to look through the Manuscript and
  collate it with that of Mr. Maule, and is of opinion (as I am) that it
  would be very desirable to retrench all the mere law questions which are
  to be found in the printed folios. Indeed the Editors of those two
  volumes had a purpose in view directly opposed to ours, for they wished
  to omit historical and domestic anecdotes and give the law cases as
  unmixed as possible, while it would be our object doubtless to exclude
  the mere law questions in favour of the other. No doubt many of
  the law cases are in themselves such singular examples of the state of
  manners that it would be a pity not to retain them even although they
  may be found in the printed copy because they are there mixed with so
  much professional matter that general readers will not easily discover
  them.

  'The retrenching of the mere law will entirely advantage the general
  sale of the work besides greatly reducing the expense, and in either
  point of view it will make it a speculation more like to be
  advantageous. I think Constable will be disposed to incur the expense of
  publishing at his own risque, allowing you one half of the free profits
  which the established mode of accounting amongst authors and booksellers
  circumcises so closely that the sum netted by the author seldom exceeds
  a 3'd or thereabout. But then you have no risque, and that is a great
  matter. My experience does not encourage me to bid you expect much
  profit upon an undertaking of this nature, in fact on any that I have
  myself tried I have been always rather a loser; but still there may be
  some, and I am sure the descendant of Lord Fountainhall is best entitled
  to such should it arise on his ancestor's work. I think you had better
  correspond with Constable, assuring him of my willingness to help in any
  thing that can get the book out, and I am sure Mr. Thomson will feel the
  same interest I have to leave here to-morrow for four months, but as I
  am only at Abbotsford I can do any thing that may be referred to me.

  'As for Milne's notes, there are many of them that I think worth
  preservation as describing and identifying the individuals of whom
  Fountainhall wrote, although his silly party zeal makes him, like all
  such partizans of faction, unjust and scurrilous.

  'I have only to add that the Manuscript is with Mr. Thomson for the
  purpose of collation, and that I am sure Constable will be glad to treat
  with you on the subject of publication, and that I will, as I have
  always been, be most ready to give any notes or illustrations in my
  power, the only way I suppose in which I can be useful to the
  publication. The idea of retrenching the law cases, which originates
  with Thomson, promises, if you entertain it, to remove the only possible
  objection to the publication, namely the great expense. My address for
  the next four months is, Abbotsford, by Melrose, and I am always, dear
  Sir Thomas, very much your faithful, humble servant,

  WALTER SCOTT.

  _'Edin'r, 10 July 1823.'_

Again on 27th November 1823:--

  'Dear Sir Thomas,--I have sent the Manuscript to Mr. Macbean, Charlotte
  Square, as you desire. It is a very curious one and contains many
  strange pictures of the times. Our ancestors were sad dogs, and we to be
  worse than them, as Horace tells us the Romans were, have a great stride
  to make in the paths of iniquity. Men like your ancestor were certainly
  rare amongst them. I had a scrap some where about the murder of the
  Lauders at Lauder where Fountainhall's ancestor was Baillie at the time.
  After this misfortune they are said to have retired to Edinburgh.
  Fountainhall's grandfather lived at the Westport. All this is I hope
  familiar to you, I say I hope so, for after a good deal of search I have
  abandoned hope of finding my memorandum.

  'I have seen Constable who promises to send me the sheets as they are
  thrown off, and any consideration that I can bestow on them will be a
  pleasure to, dear Sir Thomas, your most obedient servant,

  WALTER SCOTT.

  _'Edin'r, 2d December.'_

The last letter on the subject, written apparently by Mr. Cadell, is as
follows:--

  _'Edinburgh, 28 July 1824._

   'Dear Sir,--We duly received your much esteemed letter of 16 instant,
  and beg to assure you that we are as willing as ever to do what we
  stated last year in bringing out your MS. in a creditable way. The
  reason, and the only reason of delay, has been the indisposition of Mr.
  Constable, who has from last November till about a month ago been unable
  to give his time to business.

  'Having communicated your letter to him we beg now to state that we
  shall take immediate steps for getting the work expedited. The MS. is
  still in Mr. Thomson's hands, but we shall see him on the subject
  forthwith. It is proposed to print the work in 2 vols. octavo
  handsomely, the number 500 copies.--We remain, sir, with much respect,
  your most,

  ARCH. CONSTABLE & Co.

  'Sir Thos. Dick Lauder, Bart.'

'The publication,' as Mr. Laing says in his Preface, 'intended to form two
volumes in octavo, under the title of _Historical Notices of Scottish
Affairs_, had actually proceeded to press to page 304 in 1825, when the
misfortunes of the publisher put a stop to the enterprise. After an
interval of several years the greater portion of Sir Thomas's transcripts
was placed at the disposal of the Bannatyne Club.' The result was the
publication of the _Observes_ and the _Historical Notices_. Mr. Laing adds,
'If at any subsequent time some of his missing MSS. should be discovered,
another volume of Selections, to include his early Journal and extracts
from his smaller notebooks, might not be undeserving the attention of the
Bannatyne Club.' The Journal in France, though never printed, was reviewed
by Mr. Cosmo Innes in 1864 in the _North British Review_, vol. xli. p. 170.

OUTLINE OF FOUNTAINHALL'S LIFE

A short relation of Lord Fountainhall's life is given in Mr. David Laing's
preface to the _Historical Notices_. He was born in 1646. His father was
John Lauder, merchant and bailie of Edinburgh, of the family of Lauder of
that Ilk.[17] He graduated as Master of Arts in the University of Edinburgh
in 1664. He went to France to study in 1665, and returned from abroad in
1667. He was 'admitted' as an advocate in 1668. He was married in 1669 to
Janet, daughter of Sir Andrew Ramsay of Abbotshall,[18] Provost of
Edinburgh, afterwards a Lord of Session. In 1674, along with the leaders of
the bar and the majority of the profession, he was 'debarred' or suspended
from practising by the king's proclamation for asserting the right of
appeal from the decisions of the Court of Session, and was restored in
1676. He was knighted in 1681. In the same year his father, who was then
eighty-six years old, purchased the lands of Woodhead and others in East
Lothian. The conveyance is to John Lauder of Newington in liferent, and Sir
John Lauder, his son, in fee. The lands were erected into a barony, called
Fountainhall. In 1685, he was returned as member of Parliament for the
county of Haddington, which he represented till the Union in 1707. In 1686
his wife, by whom he had a large family, died. In 1687 he married Marion
Anderson, daughter of Anderson of Balram. He was appointed a Lord of
Session in 1689, and a Lord of Justiciary in 1690. He resigned the latter
office in 1709, and died in 1722. His father had been made a baronet in
1681 by James VII. The succession under the patent was to his son by his
third marriage; but in 1690, after the Revolution, a new patent was granted
by William and Mary to Sir John Lauder, senior, and his eldest son and his
heirs. The first patent was reduced in 1692, and in the same year
Fountainhall succeeded on his father's death.

    [17] 'Sir John Lauder of Fountainhall is deschended of the Lauders of
        that ilk, and his paternall coat is immatriculate and registrate
        in the Lyons Book of Herauldrie.'--Unprinted MS. by Lauder, in
        possession of Sir T.N. Dick Lauder. A Genealogical Roll in MS., of
        the Lauder Family, compiled by Sir T. Dick Lauder, also in the
        present baronet's possession, has afforded much useful
        information; and for Lauder's family connections, I have also
        consulted Mrs. Atholl Forbes's _Curiosities of a Scottish Charter
        Chest_, and Mrs. Stewart Smith's _Grange of St. Giles_.

    [18] See Appendix III.

The following estimate of his character in Forbes's Preface to the _Journal
of the Session_ (1714), a rare book, is quoted by Mr. Laing, but is too
much in point to be omitted here. 'The publick and private character of
this excellent judge are now so well known that I need say no more of him
than that he signalized himself as a good patriot and true Protestant in
the Parliament of 1686 in defence of the Penal Laws against Popery. This
self-denyed man hath taken no less pains to shun places that were in his
offer than some others have been at to get into preferment. Witness his
refusing to accept a patent in the year 1692 to be the King's Advocate, and
the resigning his place as a Lord of Justiciary after the Union, which Her
Majesty with reluctancy took off his hand. In short, his lordship is (what
I know by experience) as communicative as he is universally learned and
knowing. He hath observed the decisions of the Session from November 1689
till November 1712, which I have seen in Manuscript; but his excessive
modesty can't be prevailed on to make them publick.'

There are no materials for expanding Mr. Laing's sketch of Fountainhall's
life, except in so far as the notes of his travels and his expeditions into
the country, and the accounts, here printed, give some glimpses of his
habits and his domestic economy in his early professional years. He lived
in troubled times, but his own career was prosperous and comparatively
uneventful. The modesty which Professor Forbes truly ascribes to him
disinclined him to take a part, as a good many lawyers did, in public
affairs, except for a short period before the Revolution, as a member of
Parliament; and, together with his prudence and strong conscientiousness,
preserved him from mixing in the political and personal intrigues which
were then so rife in the country. The same modesty is apparent in his
writings in mature life to a tantalising degree. It may not be so
conspicuous in his boyish journal, when he was ready enough to throw down
the gauntlet in a theological discussion; but in the later voluminous MSS.,
when even dry legal disputes are enlivened by graphic and personal touches,
the author himself rarely appears on the scene. We miss the pleasant
details of Clerk of Penicuik's _Memoirs._[19] We learn little of the
author's daily walk and conversation. It does not even appear (so far as I
know) where his house in Edinburgh was. We do not know how often he went to
Fountainhall, or whether he there realised his wish to spend half his time
in the country.[20] We do not know how he occupied himself there, though it
may be gathered that he took much interest in the management of his
property and in country business, and he records with much gratification
his appointment as a justice of the peace. He tells us nothing of his wife,
except how much money she got for housekeeping, and nothing of his
children, except when he records their births or deaths. Nothing of his
personal relations with his distinguished contemporaries at the bar, or
with the men who, as officers of State and Privy Councillors, still
governed Scotland in Edinburgh.

    [19] Scottish History Society.

    [20] Journal, p. 21.

On the other hand, his opinions on all subjects, on public affairs and
public men, on such questions of speculation or ethical interest as
astrology and witchcraft, often strikingly expressed in language always
racy and sincere, are scattered through the published volumes of his
writings, all printed without note or comment. It may at least be a tribute
to Fountainhall's memory to present a short view of his opinions, and for
that purpose I have not scrupled to quote freely, especially from the
_Historical Observes,_ a delightful book, which deserves a larger public
than the limited circle of its fortunate possessors. Fountainhall's
political opinions were moderate, in an age when moderation was rare. We
are tempted to think, if I am not mistaken, that in that dark period of
Scottish history, every man was a furious partisan, as a Royalist or a
Whig, or as an adherent of one or other of the chiefs who intrigued for
power. But it may be that Lauder's attitude reflects more truly the average
opinions of educated men of the time.


HIS POLITICAL OPINIONS

His political position has perhaps been imperfectly understood by the few
writers who have had occasion to refer to it. Mr. Laing's statement, that
prior to the Revolution 'he appears generally to have acted only with those
who opposed the measure of the Court,' is not, I venture to think, wholly
accurate. It is true that on one occasion, no doubt memorable in his own
life, he incurred the displeasure of the government. When James VII. on
his accession proposed to relax the penal laws against Roman Catholics,
while enforcing them against Presbyterians, Lauder, who had just entered
Parliament, opposed that policy and spoke against it in terms studiously
moderate and respectful to the Crown. The result, however, was that he
became a suspected person. As he records in April 1686, 'My 2 servants
being imprisoned, and I threatened therewith, as also that they would seize
upon my papers, and search if they contained anything offensive to the
party then prevailing, I was necessitat to hide this manuscript, and many
others, and intermit my Historick Remarks till the Revolution in the end of
1688.'

Hence the Revolution was perhaps welcome to him. As an adherent of
character and some position he met with marked favour from the new
sovereigns, who promoted him to the bench, and corrected the injustice
which had been done to him in the matter of the patent of his father's
baronetcy, and also granted him a pension of £100 a year, an addition of
fifty per cent. to his official salary. Shortly afterwards he was offered
the post of Lord Advocate, but declined it, because the condition was
attached that he should not prosecute the persons implicated in the
Massacre of Glencoe.[21] From these facts it has been sometimes inferred
that Lauder was disaffected to the Stewart dynasty, and that his
professional advancement was thereby retarded. In reality his career was
one of steady prosperity. Having already received the honour of knighthood
while still a young man, and being a member of parliament for his county,
he became a judge at the age of forty-three. So far from holding opinions
antagonistic to the reigning house, Lauder was an enthusiastic royalist. He
was indeed a staunch Protestant at a time when religion played a great part
in politics. In his early youth the journal here published shows him as
perhaps a bigoted Protestant. But he was not conscious of any conflict
between his faith and his loyalty till the conflict was forced upon him,
and that was late in the day. In this position he was by no means singular.
Sir George Mackenzie, who as Lord Advocate was so vigorous an instrument of
Charles II.'s policy, refused, like Lauder, to concur in the partial
application of the penal laws, and his refusal led to his temporary
disgrace. Lauder was not even a reformer. He was a man of conservative
temperament, and while his love of justice and good government led him to
criticise in his private journals the glaring defects of administration,
and especially the administration of justice, there is no evidence that he
had even considered how a remedy was to be found. There was indeed no
constitutional means of redress, and all revolutionary methods, from the
stubborn resistance of the Covenanters, to the plots in London, real or
imaginary, but always implicitly believed in by Lauder, and the expeditions
of Monmouth and Argyll, met with Lauder's unqualified disapproval and
condemnation.

    [21] It has been said that there is no sufficient evidence of this
        honourable incident in Fountainhall's career. But Sir Thomas Dick
        Lauder (MS. Genealogical Roll, _supra_) reproduces it in a poem to
        the Memory of Sir John Lauder, published in 1743, and attributed
        to Blair, the author of 'The Grave,' in which the following lines
        occur. He

          'Saw guiltless blood poured out with lavish hand,
          And vast depopulated tracts of land;
          And saw the wicked authors of that ill
          Unpunished, nay, caressed and favoured still.
          The power to prosecute he would not have,
          Obliged such miscreants overlooked to save.'

  [Sidenote: H.O. 148]

  [Sidenote: H.O. 6]

  [Sidenote: Decisions, p. 232.]

I shall cite some passages in illustration. When Charles II. died and James
was proclaimed, Lauder writes that 'peoples greiff was more than their joy,
having lost their dearly loved king'; then after a gentle reference to 'his
only weak syde,' he says, 'he was certainly a prince indued with many
Royall qualities, and of whom the Divine providence had taken a speciall
care by preserving him after Worcester fight in the oak.' ... 'A star
appeared at noon day at his birth; he was a great mathematician, chemist,
and mechanick, and wrought oft in the laboratories himselfe; he had a
natural mildnesse and command over his anger, which never transported him
beyond an innocent puff and spitting, and was soon over, and yet commanded
more deference from his people than if he had expressed it more severely,
so great respect had all to him. His clemencie was admirable, witnesse his
sparing 2 of Oliver Cromwell's sones, tho on of them had usurped his
throne. His firmnesse in religion was evident; for in his banishment he had
great invitations and offers of help to restore him to his croun if he
would turne Papist, but he always refused it. As for his brother James, now
our present King, he is of that martiall courage and conduct, that the
great General Turenne was heard say, if he ware to conquer the world, he
would choise the Duke of York to command his army,' Such were Lander's
loyal sentiments, as set down in a private journal a year before his
servants and clerks were arrested, and the seizure of his papers
threatened. But his Protestantism and his jealousy of Popery were equally
strong. In 1680 he notes that the minister of Wells in Nithsdale had
'turned Roman Catholic: so this is one of the remarkable trophees and
spoils the Papists are beginning to gain upon our religion.' A little
further on he is indignant at ridicule being thrown on the Popish Plot 'Not
only too many among ourselves, but the French, turned the Plot into matter
of sport and laughter: for at Paris they acted in ther comedy, called
Scaramucchio, the English tryall, and busked up a dog in a goune lik Chief
Justice Scrogs.' Again, 'A Papist qua Papist cannot be a faithful subject,'
He had, however, no sympathy with the Covenanters, a name which he does not
use, but he describes them as 'praecise phanaticks.' He did not consider it
unjust to bring them to capital punishment, because they denied the right
of the king to govern, though on grounds of humanity and policy he was
inclined to mercy. In 1682 he observes on the execution of Alexander Home,
a small gentleman of the Merse, who had commanded a party at the
insurrection of Bothwell Bridge, 'tho he came not that lenth,' 'It was
thought ther was blood eneuch shed on that quarrell already ... for they
are like Sampson, they kill and persuade mo at ther death than they did in
ther life.' He couples the Roman Catholics and Presbyterians together as
troublesome citizens. 'These foolish people that assume the name of
Presbyterians have unwarily drunk in these restles principles from the
Jesuites and seminary priests, who have had a hand in all our troubles and
blown the coall.' Apart, however, from the political attitude of the
Covenanters, whom he regarded as disaffected subjects, there is no evidence
that he concerned himself with the controversy as to the Episcopal or
Presbyterian form of Church government, or that he regretted the re-
establishment of Presbytery after the Revolution. He was not interested in
Church matters. In 1683 he writes, 'The Synod of Edinburgh' [which was then
Episcopalian] 'sat down, and not having much else to do, enacted 1'o that
ministers should not sit in the pulpit, but stand all the time they are in
it.'[22]

    [22] A devotional diary, for 1700, apparently one of a series,
        preserved in the Edinburgh University Library, No. 274, and an
        undated letter in the Dick Lauder MSS. about the election of a
        'godly, primitive, and evangelicall pastor,' lead me to think that
        his views were Calvinistic, and not out of sympathy with the
        Presbyterian Establishment of the Revolution.

In the present volume, p. 229, there is a striking example of his sympathy
with the royal prerogative. He says it was believed that the project of
Union was 'mainly set on foot by his Majestie and so much coveted after by
him that he may rid himselfe of the House of Commons, who have been very
heavy on his loines, and the loins of his predecessors.... I confesse the
king has reason to wrest this excessive power out of the Commons their
hand, it being an unspeakable impairment of the soveraintie, but I fear it
prosper not.'

His repugnance to anything savouring of revolutionary methods, combined
with his always candid recognition of merit, appears in his observation
when Sidney was executed.

  [Sidenote: H.O. p. 110.]

He was a gallant man, yet had he been so misfortunat as ever to be on the
disloyal side, and seemed to have drunk in with his milk republican
principles.' In December 1684 Baillie of Jerviswood was prosecuted for
being art and part in a treasonable conspiracy in England, along with
Shaftesbury, Russell, and others. Lauder and Sir George Lockhart were
commanded on their allegiance to assist the King's Advocate in the
prosecution. The Court, after deliberating from midnight till three in the
morning, brought in a verdict finding 'his being art and part of the
conspiracy and design to rise in arms, and his concealing the same proven,'
He was hanged and quartered the same day. Fountainhall did not disapprove
of his condemnation. He says, 'he carried all this with much calmness and
composure of mind; only he complained the time they had given him to
prepare for death was too short, and huffed a little that he should be
esteemed guilty of any design against the life of the King or his brother,
of which he purged himself, as he hoped to find mercy, so also he denied
any purpose of subverting the monarchial government, only he had wished
that some grievances in the administration of our affairs might be
rectified and reformed; but seeing he purged not himself of the rest of his
libel, his silence as to these looked like a tacit confession and
acknowledgment thereof.'

  [Sidenote: Decisions, i. 366.]

  [Sidenote: H.O. 74]

  [Sidenote: H.N. 11]

  [Sidenote: H.O. 184]

  [Sidenote: Decisions, i. 160.]

  [Sidenote: H.O. 55.]

A still more striking illustration of Lauder's political views is afforded
by his numerous observations on Argyll, who played so great a part in
public affairs during the period covered by the manuscripts until his
execution in 1685. Argyll was not a sympathetic figure to Lauder, but, as
usual, he does justice to his qualities, and recognises the tragedy of his
fate. On the day of his execution he notes, 'And so ended that great man,
with his family, at that time.' He had a more cordial personal admiration
for a very different statesman, Lauderdale, though he often disapproved of
his policy. At his death he writes, '24 of August, 1682, dyed John
Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale, the learnedest and powerfullest Minister of
State of his age, at Tunbridge Wells. Discontent and age were the
ingredients of his death, if his Dutchesse and Physitians be freed of it;
for she had abused him most grosely, and got all from him she could
expect.... The Duke of York was certainly most ungrate to Lauderdale; for
Lauderdale was the first who adventured in August 1679 to advise the King
to bring home the Duke of York from Flanders.'[23] Argyll he deemed to be
wanting in magnanimity. In 1671 he writes on the subject of a point in a
lawsuit being decided in Argyll's favour, 'This was my Lord President's
doing [Stair], he being my Lord Argyle's great confidant. It was admired by
all that he blushed not to make a reply upon his Father's forfaultor, and
whow he had committed many treasonable crimes before the discharge, and to
see him rather than tyne his cause, suffer his father rather to be
reproached and demeaned as a traitor of new again, by his own advocats,' So
fourteen years later he writes, 'Whatever was in Argile's first
transgression in glossing the Test (which appeared slender), yet God's
wonderfull judgements are visible, pleading a controversie against him and
his family, for the cruall oppression he used, not only to his father's,
but even to his oune creditors. It was remembered that he beat Mistris
Brisbane done his stairs for craving hir annuelrents, tho he would have
bestowed as much money on a staff or some like curiosity.' He was, however,
one of Argyll's counsel when he was prosecuted for taking the Test, with
the explanation 'that he conceived that this Test did not hinder nor bind
him up from endeavouring alterations to the better either in Church or
State.' Argyll, who had escaped, was sentenced to death in his absence,
attainted, and his estates forfeited. Lauder strongly disapproved of the
proceedings. He writes, 'There was a great outcry against the Criminal
Judges, their timorous dishonesty....' These words, 'consistent with my
loyalty, were judged taxative and restrictive, seeing his loyalty might be
below the standard of true loyalty, not five-penny fine, much less eleven-
penny,' ... 'The design was to low him, that he might never be the head of
a Protestant party, and to annex his jurisdiction to the Crown, and to
parcel out his lands; and tho' he was unworthily and unjustly dealt with
here, yet ought he to observe God's secret hand, punishing him for his
cruelty to his own and his father's creditors and vassals, sundry of whom
were starving.' Lauder speaks of 'that fatal Act of the Test.' He had no
favour for it, and he narrates with glee how 'the children of Heriot's
Hospitall, finding that the dog which keiped the yairds of that Hospitall
had a publick charge and office, they ordained him to take the Test, and
offered him the paper, but he, loving a bone rather than it, absolutely
refused it; then they rubbed it over with butter (which they called an
Explication of the Test in imitation of Argile), and he licked of the
butter, but did spite out the paper, for which they hold a jurie on him,
and in derision of the sentence against Argile, they found the dog guilty
of treason, and actually hanged him.'

    [23] Sir George Mackenzie also, who criticises Lauderdale's proceedings
        very freely, pays a fine tribute to one trait in his character,
        'Lauderdale who knew not what it was to dissemble.'--_Memoirs_, p.
        182.

  [Sidenote: H.O. 166]

  [Sidenote: H.0. 196.]

  [Sidenote: H.O. 189.]

Although Lauder considered that Argyll had been unjustly condemned in the
matter of the Test, his opinion about the expedition of 1685 was very
different. He did justice to his capacity. He writes, 'Argile had always
the reputation of sense and reason, and if the Whigs at Bothwell Bridge in
1679 had got such a commander as he, it's like the rebellion had been more
durable and sanguinarie' But as soon as the news of Argyll's landing on
the west coast came, this is his note, 'Argile, minding the former
animosities and discontents in the country, thought to have found us all
alike combustible tinder, that he had no more adoe then to hold the match
to us, and we would all blow up in a rebellion; but the tymes are altered,
and the peeple are scalded so severely with the former insurrections, that
they are frighted to adventure on a new on. The Privy Council, though they
despised this invasion, yet by proclamations they called furth the whole
heritors of Scotland,' and so on. 'Some look on this invasion as a small
matter, but beside the expence and trouble it hes put the country to, if we
ponder the fatall consequences of such commotions, we'll change our
opinions: for when the ramparts of government are once broke down, and the
deluge follows, men have no assurances that the water will take a flowing
towards their meadows to fructify them; no, no, just in the contrare.'
Argyll was discovered and apprehended in his flight by a weaver near
Paisley, of whom Lauder says, 'I think the Webster who took him should be
rewarded with a litle heritage (in such a place wher Argile's death will
not be resented), and his chartre should bear the cause, and he should get
a coat of arms as a gentleman, to incouradge others heirafter.' It does not
appear that this suggestion was acted upon.

But while Lauder was a supporter of the existing order of government and
opposed to all revolutionary plans, his journals disclose that in the state
of public affairs he found much matter for criticism and ground for
anxiety. In 1674 he tells of what will happen 'whenever we get a fair and
unpraelimited Parliament, which may be long ere we see it.' In 1683 he
writes sadly: 'Though we change the Governors, yet we find no change in the
arbitrary government. For we are brought to that pass we must depend and
court the Chancelor, Treasurer, and a few other great men and their
servants, else we shall have difficulty to get either justice or despatch
in our actions, or to save ourselves from scaith, or being quarrelled on
patched up, remote and innocent grounds. This arbitrary way Lauderdale
attempted, but did not attain so great a length in it as our statesmen do
now; and they value themselves much in putting the military and
ecclesiastic Laws to strict and vigorous execution, so that, let soldiers
commit as great malversations and oppressions as they please, right is not
to be got against them. Witness John Cheisly of Dalry's usage with Daver
and Clerk, in the Kings troupe, and Sir John Dalrymple's with Claverhouse.'
In the same year he says of James, then Duke of York, and Monmouth, 'We
know not which of their factions struggling in the womb of the State shall
prevail.' He regarded these political evils and dangers as beyond his power
to remedy. It was not till after he had entered Parliament in 1685 that he
made any public utterance on politics. In the last two years of James's
reign the Test Act was enforced against Nonconformist Protestants but not
against Roman Catholics. Lauder, being then in Parliament, considered it
his duty to take a part, and he made one or two very moderate speeches,
which, although expressed with studious respect to the sovereign, were
doubtless highly displeasing to the government.


OPINIONS ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

INFLUENCE OF STUDIES ABROAD

  [Sidenote: H.N. 40.]

In the matter of the administration of justice he writes with much less
reserve in his journals. The system was bad. The jurisdiction of the Privy
Council, who tried a considerable number of causes, was ill-defined. The
judges since the time of Charles I. were removable magistrates, entirely in
the dependence of the Crown. Even the ordinary Lords of Session were not
always trained lawyers--Lauder's father-in-law, for example, Sir Andrew
Ramsay, long Provost of Edinburgh, became a judge with the title of Lord
Abbotshall. There were besides four extraordinary lords who were never
lawyers, and were not bound to attend and hear causes pleaded, but they had
the right to vote. At the Revolution one of the reasons assigned for
declaring the Crown vacant was 'the changing of the nature of the judges'
gifts _ad vitam aut culpam_, and giving them commissions _ad bene placitum_
to dispose them to compliance with arbitary sourses, and turning them out
of their offices when they did not comply.' Thus in 1681, when the Test Act
was passed, five judges were dismissed, four ordinary, including the
President, Stair, and one extraordinary, Argyll, and a new commission
issued. When the Court was so constituted, it could hardly inspire implicit
confidence, and the instances are numerous in which Lauder complains that
injustice has been done, and the principles of the law perverted through
the influence of political and private motives. Even the most eminent of
the judges were not in his opinion clear from this blot. I have quoted one
passage in which Lauder hints at Stair's partiality for Argyll. In another
case in which Argyll was concerned he observes, 'Every on saw that would be
the fate of that action, considering the pershewar's probable intres in the
President.'[24] In 1672 when, as he considered, a well-established rule of
law had been unsettled, he writes, 'This is a miserable and pittiful way
of wenting our wit, by shaking the very foundations of law, and leaving
nothing certain. The true sourse of it all is from the wofull divisions in
the House, especially between the President and the Advocat [Mackenzie],
each of them raking, tho from hell, all that may any way conduce to carry
the causes that they head, _Flectere si neque superos_,' etc. One decision
which excited his warm indignation was given in a suit by Lord Abbotshall
against Francis Kinloch, who held a wadset over the estate of Gilmerton,
which Abbotshall maintained was redeemable. He lost the case. After an
extraordinary account of the way in which the decision was arrived at
Lauder proceeds, 'the Chancelor's [Rothes] faint trinqueting and
tergiversation for fear of displeasing Halton (who agented passionately for
Francis) has abated much of his reputation. The 2d rub in Abbotshall's way
was a largesse and donation of £5000 sterling to be given to Halton and
other persons forth of the town's revenue for their many good services done
to the toune. By this they outshot Sir Androw in his oune bow, turned the
canon upon him, and _justo Dei judicio_ defait him by the toune's public
interest, with which weapone he was want to do miracles and had taught them
the way[25].... This decision for its strangeness surprised all that heard
of it; for scarce even any who once heard the case doubted but it would be
found a clear wodsett, and it opened the mouths of all to cry out upon it
as a direct and dounright subversion of all our rights and properties.'

    [24] Lauder was a very young man at the bar when he wrote these
        strictures on Stair. They may be compared with and in part
        corrected by a passage in Sir G. Mackenzie's _Memoirs_, p. 240,
        which also bears on the appointment of incompetent judges.
        'Lauderdale by promoting four ignorant persons, who had not been
        bred as lawyers, without interruption, and in two years' time, to
        be judges in it [the Session], viz., Hatton, Sir Andrew Ramsay,
        Mr. Robert Preston, and Pittrichie, he rendered thereby the
        Session the object of all men's contempt. And the Advocates being
        disobliged by the regulations did endeavour, as far as in them
        lay, to discover to the people the errors of those who had opprest
        them: and they being now become numerous, and most of them being
        idle, though men of excellent parts, wanting rather clients than
        wit and learning, that society became the only distributor of
        fame, and in effect the fittest instrument for all alterations:
        for such as were eminent, did by their authority, and such as were
        idle, by well contrived and witty raillery, make what impressions
        they pleased upon the people. Nor did any suffer so much as the
        Lord Stairs, President of the Session; who, because of his great
        affection to Lauderdale, and his compliance with Hatton, suffered
        severely, though formerly he had been admired for his sweet temper
        and strong parts. And by him our countrymen may learn, that such
        as would be esteemed excellent judges must live abstracted from
        the court; and I have heard the President himself assert that no
        judge should be either member of Council or Exchequer, for these
        courts did learn men to be less exact justiciars than was
        requisite.'

    [25] See Appendix III.

It is not to be inferred from such strictures on the administration of
justice, a matter on which, as an upright lawyer, Lauder was keenly
sensitive, that he was an ill-natured critic of his professional brethren
or of public men. On the contrary, the tone of his observations, though
shrewd and humorous, is kindly and large-minded. He admired Lockhart, who
was his senior at the bar, and whom he perhaps regarded more than any other
man as his professional leader and chief, though he does not escape a
certain amount of genial criticism. His enthusiastic eulogy of Lockhart's
eloquence has been often quoted. In his estimation of Mackenzie it is easy
to see, that while he doubted the wisdom and humanity of his relentless
prosecutions, and while his arrogance comes in for criticism in a lighter
vein, respect for his capacity, learning, and industry was the
predominating element. It is pleasant to see the constant interest that he
took in Bishop Burnet's books and movements, though they do not appear ever
to have met. 'Our Dr. Burnet,' as he calls him. But that only means that he
was a Scotsman, for he describes Ferguson the Plotter in the same way.
There is nowhere a touch of jealousy or envy in those private journals.

The influence of Lander's period of youthful travels, his _Wanderjahre_, on
his future development is seen in various ways. He always kept up his
interest in foreign countries and foreign literature. He bought a great
many books, a list of which year by year is preserved, and he read them.
The law manuscripts, though they embrace a pretty wide field, are confined
to domestic affairs. But in the _Observes_ there are every year notes and
reflections on the events passing in every part of Europe, and especially
France. There is some interest in the following passage, almost the last
sentence in the _Historical Observes_, 'In regard the Duke of Brandenburgh
and States of Holland have not roume in ther countries for all the fugitive
Protestants, they are treating with Pen and other ouners of thesse
countries of Pensylvania, Carolina, etc., to send over colonies ther; so
that the purity of the Gospell decaying heir will in all probability passe
over to America.' The foreign schools of law where he had studied naturally
affected his treatment of legal questions. Until the publication of the
great work of Stair, the common civil law of Scotland was in a
comparatively fluid state, though there were some legal treatises of
authority, such as Craig's _Feudal Law_. Mackenzie's _Criminalls_ was
published in 1676, and is often referred to by Lauder. Many of his
contemporaries at the bar had studied like himself in the foreign schools
of the Roman Civil Law, and in his reports of cases the original sources
are quoted with enviable familiarity and appositeness.


TORTURE, ASTROLOGY, AND WITCHCRAFT

In questions of social ethics, such as torture, and of popular belief, such
as astrology and witchcraft, Lauder was not much in advance of his age. He
frequently mentions the infliction of torture without any comment. When
Spence and Carstairs were tortured with the thummikins, he describes them
as 'ane ingine but lately used with us,' and possibly he had some
misgiving. The subjects of astrology and witchcraft had an attraction for
his inquiring and speculative mind.[26] He believed in the influence of the
heavenly bodies, and more firmly in witchcraft, for which many unhappy
women were every year cruelly put to death. These trials at times evidently
gave him some uneasiness. But usually, with regard to both topics, his
doubts do not go beyond a cautious hint of scepticism tinged with humour.
He was fundamentally a religious man, and where he touches on the great
issues of life, and the relation of man to his Maker, it is in a tone of
deep solemnity. But he loves to discourse in a learned fashion
on the influence of the stars. 'Charles the 2d,' he says, 'fell with few or
no prognosticks or omens praeceeding his death, unlesse we recur to the
comet of 1680, which is remote, or to the strange fisches mentioned, supra
page 72, or the vision of blew bonnets, page 74,[27] but these are all
conjecturall: vide, supra Holwell's prophecies in his Catastrophe Mundi,'
and so on. In 1683 'we were allarumed with ane strange conjunction was to
befall in it of 2 planets, Saturn and Jupiter in Leo.... Our winter was
rather like a spring for mildnes. If it be to be ascrybed to this
conjunction I know not.' In the case of comets there was less room for
scepticism. In December 1680, 'a formidable comet appeared at Edinburgh.'
In discoursing on this comet he remarks that Dr. Bainbridge observed the
comet of 1618 'to be verticall to London, and to passe over it in the
morning, so it gave England and Scotland in their civill wars a sad wype
with its taill. They seldom shine in wain, though they proceed from
exhalations and other natural causes.'

    [26] Mr. Andrew Lang has pointed out to me that Lauder's remarks on the
        identity of the popular legends in France and Scotland (_Journal_,
        p. 83) are a very early instance of this observation, now
        recognised to be generally applicable.

    [27] P. 74, i.e. of his MS. For the vision of blue bonnets, compare
        H.O., p. 142, and Wodrow's _History_, iv. 180.

  [Sidenote: H.N. 198.]

  [Sidenote: H.N. 146.]

Lauder relates several trials for witchcraft in much detail, and they
evidently gave him some uneasiness. Some of the women commonly confessed
and implicated other persons. In one such case the women, who among other
persons, accused the parish minister, said that the devil sometimes
transformed them 'in bees, in crows, and they flew to such and such remote
places; which was impossible for the devil to doe, to rarefy the substance
of their body into so small a matter ... thir confessions made many
intelligent sober persons stumble much what faith was to be adhibite to
them.' In another case from Haddington a woman confessed and accused five
others and a man. Lauder saw the man examined and tested by pricking. He
says, 'I remained very unclear and dissatisfied with this way of triall,
as most fallacious: and the man could give me no accompt of the principles
of his art, but seemed to be a drunken foolish rogue.' Then, according to
his custom, he cites a learned authority, Martino del Rio, who lays bare
the craft and subtlety of the devil, and mentions that 'he gives not the
nip to witches of quality; and sometimes when they are apprehended he
delets it....' 'The most part of the creatures that are thus deluded by
this grand impostor and ennemy of mankind are of the meanest rank, and are
ather seduced by malice, poverty, ignorance, or covetousness.' But he finds
comfort in the pecuniary circumstances of the Tempter. 'It's the
unspeakable mercy and goodness of our good God that that poor devill has
not the command of money (tho we say he is master of all the mines and hid
treasures of the earth) else he would debauch the greatest part of the
world.'


CONTENTS OF HIS EARLY JOURNALS AND ACCOUNTS

It has already been mentioned that Lauder's later journals, when he came to
chronicle public affairs and legal decisions, though they are full of
graphic detail, contain little that is personal to himself. The manuscripts
here printed, besides giving a picture of a Scottish student's life in
France during the seventeenth century, include a narrative of his visits to
London and Oxford on his return from abroad, his journey by coach and post
from London to Edinburgh, and various expeditions in Fife, the Lothians,
and the Merse, Glasgow, and the Clyde district, places where he had
connections. He travelled on horseback. He kept one horse at this time,
which appears in the Accounts. Considering his evident relish for
travelling, it is remarkable that in his long life he never seems to have
left Scotland after his return in 1667, though many of his more political
brethren at the bar were constantly on the road between Edinburgh and
Whitehall.

He kept his accounts with great care. There were no banks, and his method
was to account for each sum which he received, detailing how it was spent
in dollars, merks, shillings sterling and Scots, pennies, etc. We have both
his accounts during his period of travel, which are included in the first
manuscript, and those during the years 1670 to 1675. From the latter
copious extracts are given, and they are informatory as to the prices of
commodities, and the mode of life of a young lawyer recently married. There
was settled on him by his father in his marriage contract an annuity of
1800 merks (£100), secured on land. His wife's marriage portion was 10,000
merks (about £555), half of it paid up and invested, the remainder bearing
interest at 6 per cent. His 'pension' as one of the assessors of the burgh
was £12 (sterling). His house-rent was £20 (sterling): in one place it is
stated a little higher; and he sublet the attics and basement. The wages of
a woman servant was nearly £2 (sterling). We find the prices of cows, meal,
ale, wine, clothing, places at theatres, etc., the cost of travelling by
coach, posting, fare in sailing packet to London and so on.

  [Sidenote: H.O. 137.]

  [Sidenote: Genealogical Roll.]

There are many illustrations throughout Lauder's manuscripts of the poverty
of Scotland, relatively not only to the present time but to England. The
official salary of a judge before the Union was £200, and it only reached
that figure during his lifetime. Some time after the Union it was raised to
£500. On the appointment of the Earl of Middleton as joint Secretary of
State for England with Sunderland, in place of Godolphin, Lauder notes,
'This was the Dutchesse of Portsmouth's doing, and some thought Midleton
not wise in changing (tho it be worth £5000 sterling a year, and 3 or 4
years will enrich on), for envy follows greatnesse as naturally as the
shadow does the body, and the English would sooner bear a Mahometan for
ther Secretar than a Scot, only he has now a good English ally, by marrieng
Brudnell Earle of Cardigan's sister.' Thus the salary of a Secretary of
State in England was the same in 1684 as it is now, whereas the salary of a
Scottish judge was only one eighteenth part of its present amount: Lauder
in his will gives a detailed account of his own investments. Sir Thomas
Dick Lauder computes that he left about £11,000 besides the estate of
Fountainhall, which he inherited. He was, however, the son of a wealthy
man. At his marriage before he had any means of his own, 90,000 merks were
settled by his father, who had several other children, on the children of
the marriage (£5000 sterling, representing a sum many times as large in the
present day).

MONEY

Lauder mentions a great variety of coins both in his Journal in France and
in his Accounts after his return home. Some explanation of the principal
coins may be useful. It is necessary to keep in mind that the value of
coins was in a perpetual flux. There were during the century frequent
changes in the value of coins relatively even to those of the same country.

1. _In France._

(1) _Livre_. The livre used by Lauder, and called by him indifferently
'frank,' was the livre tournois,[28] of 20 sous. It was, subject to
exchange, of the same value as the pound Scots,[29] 1s. 8d. sterling, which
greatly simplifies calculations. The £ s. d. French was equal to the
£ s. d. Scots, and one twelfth of the value of the £ s. d. English or
sterling.

    [28] The livre parisis contained 25 sous.--Major's _Greater
        Britain_ (S.H.S.), p. 32, note.

    [29] See pp. 3 and 4 and _passim_.

(2) _Ecu, écu blanc_, or _d'argent_, a silver coin worth 3 livres,[30] or
5s. sterling, thus of the same value as the English crown, and sometimes
called crown by Lauder.

    [30] The value varied a little, but it was three livres in 1653.--
        _Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et de Belles Lettres_
        (1857), Tome 21, 2'me partie, p. 350.

(3) _Ecu d'or_, or _couronne_, golden crown. It was worth about 5 livres 12
sous,[31] equal to 9s. 4d. sterling. (P. 155, 'I receaved some 56 ll. in 10
golden crowns.')

    [31] The exact value in 1666 in livres tournois was 5 ll. 11s. 6d.--
        _Mémoires, ut supra_, p. 256.

(4) _Pistole_. A Spanish gold coin current in France. Its standard value
was 10 livres tournois, equal to 16s. 8d. That fairly corresponds with a
proclamation in Ireland in 1661 fixing it at 16s. Littré (_Dict._ s.v.),
states the value of the coin a good deal higher, though he gives the
standard as above. But its value gradually increased, like that of other
gold coins, and in later Irish proclamations is much higher.

The British gold coins _Jacobus_ and _Carolus_ were also used by Lauder in
France, and are explained below.

2. _In Scotland and England._[32]

    [32] See Cochran Patrick's _Records of the Coinage of Scotland_
        (1876); Ruding's _Annals of the Coinage_ (1817); and _Handbook of
        the Coins of Great Britain and Ireland_ in the British Museum, by
        H.A. Grueber (1899); Burns, _Coinage of Scotland_.

(1) _Jacobus_ (2) _Carolus_. James VI. on his accession to the throne of
England, with a view to the union of the kingdoms, issued a coinage for
both countries, which was in this sense uniform that each Scottish coin was
commensurable and interchangeable with an English coin. The ratio of the
Scots to the English £ s. d., which during centuries was always becoming
lower, was finally fixed at 1 to 12. The English 20s. and Scots 12 l.
pieces of equal value now issued were called the unite. The double crown or
10s. piece was the Scots 6 l. piece, the crown the Scots 3 l. piece, and so
on.

The unite was so called from the leading idea of union, just as the double
crown had the legend, _Henricus Rosas Regna Jacobus_. As Henry VII. united
the Red and White Roses, James was to unite the two kingdoms. It seems
probable that James intended the unite as a 20s. or pound piece to be the
standard and pivot of the coinage of both countries, as the pound or
sovereign has now become. This enlightened policy, though it had lasting
effects, soon broke down in detail. In England the shilling proved too
strong for the unite, and in Scotland the merk maintained its hold. To
prevent the exportation of gold, the value of the unite of 154 grains[33]
was raised to 22s. in 1612, though the king had himself proposed rather to
lower the weight of silver. That caused confusion, 'on account of the
unaptness for tale' of the gold pieces at their enhanced value, and a
lighter 20s. piece of 140 grains was issued in 1619 for England only, known
as the laurel piece, from the wreath round the king's head. In Scotland the
original unite remained, and was sometimes called the 20 merk piece, to
which value it roughly corresponded. It was repeated in the coinage of
Charles I., the last sovereign who coined gold in Scotland prior to the
Revolution. Thus it was the only Scottish 20s. sterling piece. Charles I.'s
unite or double angel (20s. piece) for England was of the same lighter
weight as the laurel. In 1661 the value of the gold coin was again
heightened, the old unite to 23s. 6d., and the lighter English unite to
21s. 4d.

    [33] The weights are given in round numbers.

The above information is necessary in order to identify the two gold coins
which Lauder used. He generally calls the larger the Jacobus and the
smaller the Carolus. At p. 80 the one is mentioned as 'the Scotes and
English Jacobuses, which we call 14 pound peices,' and the other as 'the
new Jacobus, which we cal the 20 shiling sterling peice.' At p. 154 he
speaks of '10 Caroluses, or 20 shiling peices,' so that the new Jacobus and
the Carolus are the same. While there was only one weight of Scots gold
piece of the issue value of 20s. sterling, in England during the reigns of
James I., Charles I., and Charles II. there were four: 1, the sovereign of
James I. (172 grains); 2, the unite or double angel of James (154 grains),
the same as in Scotland; 3, the laurel of James, the unite of Charles I.,
and the broad of Charles II. (140 grains); 4, the guinea[34] of Charles
II., first struck in 1663 (131 grains). Now Lauder's larger coin was a
Scots or English Jacobus, therefore it is the unite of James VI.; and his
smaller coin is called both a Carolus and a new Jacobus, therefore it is
the coin of 140 grains. The two pieces are mentioned in a proclamation by
the Privy Council in 1661 heightening certain coins.[35]

    [34] Once mentioned by Lauder, p. 220.

    [35] This table may be compared with Louis XIII.'s valuation of some of
        these coins (p. 80). The Scots piece there mentioned with two
        swords, and the legend _Salus_, etc., is no doubt the sword and
        sceptre piece of James VI. (1601-4). But the issue value of the
        whole piece, not the half piece, was 611. Scots.

                          £ s. D. Scots.         £ s. D. Scots.
                       formerlie current at    now to be current at
The Double Angel [36]        13.06.08                14.04.08
The Single Angel             6.13.04                 7.02.04
The Dager Peice              6.13.04                 7.02.04
The Scots Ryder              6.13.04                 7.02.04

The New Peice[37]           12.00.00                12.16.00
The Halfe                    6.00.00                 6.08.00
The Quarter                  3.00.00                 3.04.00

The Rose Noble, Scots
and English.                10.13.04                11.07.04

The Hary Noble               9.06.08                 9.19.00

    [36] Lauder's Jacobus.

    [37] Lauder's Carolus.

(3) _Dollar_. In Lauder's accounts the reader is struck by the prominent
position of the dollar. While debts and obligations were calculated in
pounds Scots or merks, dollars supplied the currency for household and
other payments, just as pounds do at the present day. They were foreign
coins of various denominations and various intrinsic value, but of inferior
fineness to the Scots standard of silver money, which was eleven penny
fine--eleven parts silver to one part alloy. They passed current for more
than their intrinsic value, and the native silver money was withdrawn from
the country. All through the reigns of Charles I. and Charles II. the
subject gave great concern to the Mint, the Parliament, the Privy Council,
and bodies with commercial interests like the Convention of 'Burrowis.' In
1631 the Privy Council issued a proclamation 'considering the greit
skarsitie of His Majestie's proper coynes ... occasioned by the frequent
transport theirof and importing of dollours in place of the same,'
prohibiting the receipt of any dollars for coal or salt after 1st November
next to come. 'That in the mean tyme the maisters and owners of the
coalhewes and saltpans may give tymous advertisement to the strangers
trading with them for coal and salt that they bring no dollours with them
for the pryce of the salt and coal,' and that merchants exporting bestial
or other commodities to England are to 'make return of the pryces' not in
dollars, but either in H.M. proper coin or in the following foreign coins,
the value and weight of which is fixed by the proclamation: Spanish
pistolet, French crown, rose noble, half rose noble, quartisdiskue, single
ryall. The proper method of dealing with the difficulty was matter of great
controversy.

In 1633 George Foulis, master coiner, says in a memorial, 'In the first it
is to be considerit that _the most pairt of the moneys presently in
Scotland is only dollouris_.

'Secondlie, these dollouris are not all alike in wecht, some wheirof are 15
drops wecht, some 14-1/2 and many others lesser in wecht.

'Thirdlie, they are different in fineness, some 10, some 10-1/2, others
baser. The best 15 drop and 10 1/2 fineness will not answer to the King's
money in wecht or fynness to 54s. Scots.'

The best of these dollars was the Rex or Rix Dollar (Reichsthaler, dalle
imporiale). In the reign of Charles I. the baser dollars which gave most
trouble to the authorities were the dog dollars and the cross dollars. In
the reign of Charles II. we hear more of the leg dollar, which approached
the rex dollar in value, and had got a pretty strong footing.

On 14th January 1670, the Privy Council issued a proclamation on the
narrative, 'Forasmuch as there hath been of late imported into this kingdom
great numbers of those dollars commonly called leg dollars Haveing the
impression of a man in armes _with one leg _and a shield ... covering the
other leg ... which does usually pass at the rate of 58s. Scots money, and
seeing that upon tryall of the intrinsick worth and value thereof they are
found to fall short of the foresaid rate, and that in the United Provinces
where the forsaid dollars are coyned, the passe only at the rate of crosse
dollars, Therupon the King's Mtie with advice of his P.Cs. doth declare
that (the rex or bank dollars now passing at 58s. Scotts) the true and just
value at which the forsaids legs dollars ought to passe and be current in
this kingdome is 56s. Scotts money....'

Thus we get the authorised value of these dollars at the period of Lauder's
accounts. The accounts themselves show that the current value varied
indefinitely, and is sometimes different in two consecutive items.[38]

    [38] With regard to the etymology of 'leg,' Mr. Hallen in his
        introduction to the _Account Book of Sir John Foulis of Ravelston_
        (S.H.S.), p. xxxiii, gives some strong and perhaps convincing
        reasons in favour of Liége. But the descriptions in the
        Proclamation above quoted, and the fact that Lauder sometimes
        calls them 'legged,' seem to show that the popular etymology in
        Scotland was the man's leg on the coin.

Charles II. struck four merk-pieces at the issue value of 53s. 4d. Scots in
two issues, the first in 1664, the second in 1675-1682. The second, and
only the second issue, came at some later but unknown period to be known to
numismatists as dollars. But I do not think there is any reason to suppose
that Lauder called those pieces dollars. The accounts are in the period of
the first issue, and Lander's dollar was of higher value. Probably his
dollars were all foreign coins, generally rex dollars, as he often calls
them. When they are leg dollars, he appears always so to distinguish them.

(4) _The Merk_, 13s. 4d. Scots, was raised in value by James VI. to 13-
1/2d. sterling, to make it interchangeable with English money. He coined
none after his accession to the throne of England, and probably intended
that no more should be coined. But the merk had too strong a hold in
Scotland, and half merks were struck by Charles I., and various multiples
and parts of merks by Charles II. at the old issue value of 13s. 4d. the
merk. On the other hand, in 1651 Parliament 'cryed up' the 12s. Scots
piece--equal to the English shilling--to one merk; and in 1625 the Britain
crown or 31. Scots piece is officially described as 'known as the five merk
piece,' though its issue value was only five shillings. This illustrates
the confusion and uncertainty of the relative value of coins, of which
parenthetically two other examples may be given. On 20th June 1673 Lauder
notes the receipt of his year's salary as one of the assessors for the
burgh, 'being 150 lb. Scots, which is about 229 merks,' whereas with the
merk at 13s. 4d. (the standard value), 150 lb. is exactly 225 merks. In the
same way he constantly states the same salary indifferently at 1501. Scots
or £12 sterling, whereas 1501. Scots ought to have been equal to £12, 10s.
sterling.

(5) _Shilling_. Lauder applies the name without distinction to the English
shilling, 12s. Scots piece, which at page 80 he calls our shilling, and to
the shilling Scots. The context generally shows which he means.

(6) _Groat_. Lauder's groat is the English groat of four pence, sterling.
The groat Scots of less value had not been coined for a century.

(7) _Penny_. As in the case of the shilling, Lauder uses the name
indifferently for English pence and pennies Scots, but more often English.

Such coins as testoons, placks, bodles, bawbees and turners, do not appear
in his accounts, but some of them are casually mentioned in the text of the
MSS., and are explained in footnotes.


LANGUAGE AND SPELLING

No alteration has been made on the text of the MSS. except the substitution
of capital letters for small ones, where capitals would now be used. In
this matter Lauder's practice is capricious, and it may safely be said that
it was governed by no rule, conscious or unconscious. He spells the pronoun
I with a capital, and usually begins a sentence with one. But names of
persons and places are very often spelt with small letters. The use of
capitals was not yet fixed, as it is now, and the usage of different
languages, such as English, French and German, as it came to be fixed, is
not identical. Some changes in the punctuation have also been made in
transcription for the sake of clearness, but the punctuation, which is
scanty, has not been systematically altered. In the MSS. some single words
have been erased, or rubbed off, at the top and the foot of the page. The
blanks are indicated, and as a rule, but not quite invariably, explained in
footnotes. MSS. X and H are printed entire, with two unimportant omissions,
one in each, which are noted and explained, and as regards MS. H, with the
exception of some detached pages of accounts, and a catalogue of some
books. Of these it was thought that the Appendix contains enough. From MS.
K only extracts are given. The remainder contains more accounts, and a
further catalogue of books, without the prices, and other memoranda and
reflections, now of no interest. The spelling is to a large extent
arbitrary.[39] It is less regular than, for example, the contemporary Acts
of Parliament, but more regular than the letters of some of Lauder's
contemporaries, in high positions.[40] A word is often spelt in different
ways on the same page. There are, however, many constant peculiarities,
some of which may have a linguistic interest, thus 'laugh' 'rough' 'enough'
'through' are spelt with a final _t_. The use of a final but silent _t_ Mr.
Mackay in his introduction to Pitscottie,[41] p. cxl, says is a distinct
mark of Scots of the middle period. 'Voyage,' 'sponge,' and 'large' are
sometimes spelt without the final _e_. 'Knew,' 'slew,' 'blew' are spelt
'know,' 'slow,' 'blow.' 'Inn' is spelt 'innes.' 'See' is always spelt 'sy'
or 'sie,' and 'weigh,' 'wy.' But these are only examples, taken at random.
'One,' 'off,' 'too,' 'thee' are spelt 'on,' 'of,' 'to,' 'the,' a snare to
the unwary reader. 'V' and 'W' are frequently interchanged.

    [39] Lauder's French in the Journal in France is full of mistakes,
        both of grammar and spelling. He was only learning the language.

    [40] Cf. Bishop Dowden's introduction to Lauderdale Correspondence
        (S.H.S.), _Miscellany_, vol. i. p. 230.

    [41] _Historic and Chronicles of Scotland_, by Robert Lindesay of
        Pitscottie (Scottish Text Society, 1899).

Lauder's language is idiomatic, and he uses many Scottish words which were
not common in the written literary language of his time. A few of these
words are now rare and even difficult to trace.[42] Most of them are quite
intelligible to persons who have been accustomed to hear Lowland Scots
spoken, but for the sake of other readers I have been convinced that
occasionally interpretation is not superfluous.

    [42] One of them is 'dron,' p. 146. With reference to the words '_7
        arbres_,' in the description of the Mail at Tours, p. 20, Mr. A.
        Lang has suggested to me that _arbres_ might be a term in the _Jeu
        de Mail_. Mr. H.S.C. Everard has kindly sent me the following
        quotations from Joseph Lauthier's book on the game (1st ed.,
        1717): 'C'est quand deux ou plusieurs jouent à qui poussera plus
        loin, et quand l'un est plus fort que l'autre, le plus foible
        demande avantage, soit par distance d'arbres, soit par distance de
        pas.' 'On finit la Partie en touchant un arbre ou une pierre
        marquée qui sert de but.' If certain trees were marked as goals,
        that would be a better explanation than the one given in the note.

The thanks of the Society and my own are due to the owners of the MSS. I am
grateful to Sir T.N. Dick Lauder and Sir William Fraser's Trustees (Sir
James Balfour Paul, Lyon King of Arms, and the late Mr. James Craik, W.S.),
for intrusting me with their MSS. for a long time, which made my work much
easier; and more satisfactory. The Society is also indebted to Mr. David
Douglas for the use of his transcript of MS., and for the first suggestion
that the MS. should be printed.

By the kindness of Lady Anne Dick Lauder four portraits in her possession
are reproduced. 1. Lord Fountainhall, in ordinary dress, a different
picture from the one in robes published by the Bannatyne Club. 2. His first
wife, Janet Ramsay, an attractive picture, which suffers in the
photographic reproduction. 3. Sir John Lauder, Fountainhall's father. 4.
Sir Andrew Ramsay, Lord Abbotshall, his father-in-law.

I have received constant assistance and advice from Mr. T. Graves Law,
Librarian of the Signet Library. I have also to thank Sir Arthur Mitchell,
who read some of the proofs, and gave me valuable suggestions, Mr. J.T.
Clark, Keeper of the Advocates' Library, for ready help on many points, Mr.
H.A. Webster, Librarian of Edinburgh University, Mr. W.B. Blaikie, of
Messrs. T. and A. Constable, and Mr. Alex. Mill of the Signet Library, who
in transcription and otherwise has given me efficient and obliging
assistance.

I am particularly grateful to Miss Cornelia Dick Lauder, for the interest
which she has taken in the book, and the help which she has given me in
obtaining the necessary materials for it.

D.C.

EDINBURGH, _March_ 1900.



I

JOURNAL IN FRANCE

1665-1667




I

JOURNAL 1665-1667.

[The first leaves of the Manuscript are wanting. Lauder left Edinburgh on
20th March 1665, travelling by Berwick and Durham, and arrived in London on
1st April. See page 154.]

       *       *       *       *       *

We saw also the fatall chair of Scotland wheirin our kings for many ages
used to be croune. I fand it remarkable for nothing but its antiquity, it
being thought to have come from Egypt some 3,000 years ago.

I went in the nixt place to the Tower, wheir on our entrin according to
custome I left my sword. Heir first we saw a very strong armory for weapons
of all sorts, as many as could furnish 20,000 men; we saw great field
pieces of ordinance as also granadoes; we saw also many coats of maill, and
among the rest on[43] very conceity all joined like fines of fisches on to
another, which they informed me came as a present from the great Mogull who
comands over 36 kings. The[re] ware hinging their as Trophees several
peices of armour that they had taken from the french in their wars wt them.
Their we saw the huge armour of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. We came
nixt and saw the honors, wheir we saw the sword and seipter of honor; the
croun was not their, by reason the parliament had use for it at Whitehal.
We saw also a most rich Globe of christal beset wt most precious diamonds.
We came in the 3d place to sie the Lyons, the Leopards, the aigle, and a
long skine of a snake.

    [43] One. Lauder's usual spelling.

We arrived London on Saturday 1 of April, we left it on Thursday 6 of
April; about 4 a cloack we took boat, and landed at Gravesend about 10 a
cloack at night, in which space we ware so merry in singing never but some
of us singing and sometymes all, that the rowers protested that they never
carried so merry a company doune the Thames. On the way we was tuise stoopt
by men of war to know whither their ware any seamen in it, that they might
be sent to the fleet: at which we alleadged Captain Blawprine[44] G. Moor
was much troubled, for he was exceeding skipper like. To morrow tymously we
tooke post about 6 a cloack, and reach Dover about one; yet we got not
passage til ij at night. What a distressed brother I was upon the sea neids
not hear be told, since its not to be feared that I'l forget it, yet I
cannot but tell whow[45] Mr. John Kincead and I had a bucket betwixt us
strove ... who should have the bucket first, both being equally ready; and
whow at every vomit and gasp he gave he cried Gods mercy as give he had
bein to expire immediately.

    [44] Compare Blawflum (Jamieson), a deception. 'Prine' may be prein,
        pin, a thing of little value. Moor is playfully described as
        captain or skipper.

    [45] How.

About 5 in the morning we landed on France the land of graven images. Heir
we divided into 8 companies: Joseph Marior wt one Mr. Colison went into
Flanders; Mr. Dick Moor and Kinkead went to Deip and so to Roan. Mr.
Strachan, Hamilton, and I stayed in Calais til Monday, 10 of April, and
joined wt the messenger for Paris one Pierre, a sottish fellow, yet one
that entertained us nobly; their went also wt him besides us on Mr. Lance
Normand, Newwarks gouernor and a son of my Lord Arreray or Broll,[46] a
very sharp boy wt his governour Doctor Hall. In our journey we passed
severall brave tounes as Bulloigne, Monstrul, Abewill, Poix, Beauveaus,
wheir is the most magnificent church I had ever then sien. We chanced to
lay a night at a pitty vilage called Birny, wheir my chamber was contigue
to a spatious pleasant wood that abounded wt nightingales, small birds to
look upon; who wt the melodiousnesse of their singing did put sleip quit
from me. The great number we meit of souldiers all the way begat in us
great fears of wooling [robbing],[47] yet it pleased God to bring us most
safely to Paris 14 of April at night. Mr. Strachan led Mr. Ham[ilton] and
me to one Turners, a Scotsman, wheir I lay that night, and wheir I
recountred wt several of our countrimen, as Patrick Mein, Mr. Castellaw,
Mr. Murray, Mr. Sandilands, a man wonderfully civil, Mr. Wilky, Mr. Gibson,
and Mr. Colt. The day following I made my addresse to F. Kinloch, and
brought wt me a letter containing my safe anivall to go in his packet for
Scotland, I not having written any thing since I wrot at my parting from
London. I delivered him also my fathers letter, B.[48] Kinlochs letter, and
Thomas Crafurds, wt the bill of exchange; my fathers is as followeth:

    [46] Roger Boyle, 1621-1679, first Baron of Broghill and Earl of
        Orrery, M.P. for Edinburgh, 1656-58, member of Cromwell's House of
        Lords. He was succeeded by his son Roger, 1646-1710.

    [47] 'Robbing' interlined. 'Wooling' may mean 'shearing,' so robbing.

    [48] Bailie.

  _Edinborough, March_ 15, 1665.

  SIR,--The bearer heirof, my sone, inclining to study the french tongue
  and the Laws, I have theirfor thought it expedient to direct him to you,
  being confident of your favour and caire, intreating[49] ...
  recommendation by a few lynes to one Monsieur Alex.[49] ... [pr]ofessor
  of the Laws at Poictiers to which place I intend he sould go: as also to
  place him their for his diet in the most convenient house but especially
  wt on of our profession and Religion. He hes a bill drawen on you wt a
  letter of advice and credit; which I hope ye will obey. I have bein
  desired by severalls to have direct him to our Mr. Mowat and have bein
  profered to cause answer him what money he sould neid for 20 shiling the
  Frank: but I inclined rather to send him to you (whilk I hope ye will
  not take as trouble) tho I have payed Thomas Crafurd 21 shiling.[50]
  What he stands in neid of during his abode I hope ye wil answer him, and
  upon your advertisment and eis receipt I sal either advance or pay the
  money upon sight. I most without vanity or flattery say hitherto he hes
  not bein inclined to any vice or evill way and I hope sall so continue.
  I know not positively what may defray his charges in his studies, diet,
  and otherwise, but I conceive about 7 or 8 hundred franks a year may do
  it; whowever I entreat you let me hear from you what ye think
  wil do it and what ye will take for the frank. So being confident of
  your cair heirof, and in doing wheirof ye sall very much oblidge him who
  is, Sir,--your reall friend,

  JOHN LAUDER.

    [49] Page torn.

    [50] See Introduction, p. xlviii.

The bill of exchange is as followeth:

  _Edinburgh, 17 March 1665_, for 400 livres T.L.[51]

  Sir,--4 dayes after sight of this my first bill of exchange (my 2 not
  being payed) please pay to Mr. John Lauder or his order 400 livres TL
  value receaved heir from his father B. John Lauder. Make punctuall
  payment and please it to account, as by the advice of your humble
  servant,

  THOMAS CRAFURD.

  For Mr. Francis Kinloch, Merchant in Paris.

    [51] See Introduction, p. xlii.

Francis having read thir, out of his kindnese would suffer me to stay no
wheir but in his oune house, wheir I stayed all the space I was at Paris,
attended and entertained as give I had bein a Prince. While I was heir I
communicated my intentions and directions for going straight to Poictiers
to these countrymen fornamed, who ware all unanimously against it, not
sieing what good I could do their since the Colledge was just upon the
point of rising; they conceived theirfor that I might imploy my tyme much
better either in Orleans at Mr. Ogilvyes house, or Saumur at Mr. Dualls;
for in either of these I could have a richer advantage in reference to the
language, both because its beter spoken their [then at] Poictiers, as also
fewer Scotsmen their then in Poictiers. I sould also have for a pistoll[52]
a month a master to give me a lesson on the Instituts once a day, which I
could not so have at that rate at Poictiers. Thus they reasoned, and I fand
Mr. Kinloch to be of the same mind. I considering that it was not expedient
for me to step one step wtout direction from my father, I wrot the
Vednesday following, 19 of Aprill, acquainting him wt it; and that I sould
attend his answer and will at Orleans.

    [52] See Introduction, p. xliii.

While I was at Paris I went and saw the new Bridge, and Henry 4 his stately
statue in brasse sent as a present by the King of Denmark. I was also at
the Place Royalle wheir stands Lewis the 13, this king of France
his father, caused to be done by that great statesman in his tym, Cardinall
Mazarin, whom he left tutor to the young king during his minority.

I was also at the Palais Cardinal and that Palais wheir the Lawyers pleads.
The choops[53] their have great resemblance wt those in the hie exchange at
London. I saw also that vast stupendious building, the Louwre, which hath
layd many kings in their graves and yet stands unfinished; give[54] all be
brought to a close that is in their intentions I think the Grand Seigniours
seraglio sall bear no proportion to it. All we saw of it was the
extrinsecks, excepting only the king's comoedy house which the force of
mony unlocked and cost open; which truly was a very pleasant sight, nothing
to be sein their but that which by reason of gilding glittered like gold.
But the thing that most commended it was its rare, curious, and most
conceity machines: their they had the skies, boats, dragons, vildernesses,
the sune itselfe so artificially represented that under night wt candle
light nothing could appear liker them.

    [53] Shops.

    [54] Give for gif, if.

The day before I left Paris, being according to the French account the 5 of
May, according to the Scots the 25 of Aprill, Mr. Kinloch wt his wife and
daughter Magdalen took Mr. Mein, Mr. Dick,[55] Mr. Moor and me in coach 4
leagues of Paris to Ruell to sie the waterworks their, which wtout controll
be the best of any about Paris, by the way we passed thorow one of the
pleasantest woods or Parks that ever my eyes did sie, called the Park of
Boloigne. We saw Madrid also, but not that in Spaine; the occasion of the
building wheirof was this: Francis, one of the kings of France, became
Spaines prisoner, who demanded ...[56] ransome 8 milions. The french king
payes him 4, and ...[56] promises him upon the word of a king that having
once lifted it in France he sould come in person to Madrid and pay it. Thus
vinning home he caused build a stately house a litle from Paris, which he
named Madrid, and so wrot to the Spaniard that he had bein at Madrid and
payed what he owed, according to that, '_qui nescit dissimulare nescit
regnare_' We saw also Mount Calvary, which the Deluded Papists will have to
be the true representative of that Calvary wheir our Saviour suffered: its
situate at that same distance from Paris that the true's from Jerusalem, of
that same hieght, and so in all the circumstances.

    [55] This may be James Dick, who was born in the same year as Lauder,
        1646, afterwards Sir J. Dick of Priestfield, Lord Provost of
        Edinburgh, and created a baronet.

    [56] Page torn.

Thus we come to Ruell, wheir so many gallant sights offered themselfes that
I know not wheir to begin; first the pleasant ponds abounding wt fishes of
divers sorts, as carps, picks, etc., comes to be considred. But the rich
waterworks are the main commendation of the place. It is not to be
forgotten whow finely the fellow that showed us them, and set them on work
by his engines did wet Mr. Dick, and followed him in the litle house (the
Grotto) whethersoever he could stir. The thing that mainly moved my
admiration was the hie ascendance of the water: what secret hidden power
could carry the water clean contrary to its natural inclination which is to
deschend, as every other heavy body, so hy that in some of them a man wt a
speir could not reach its top.

The most wonderfull thing ever I saw is the infinit art that some curious
painter hath showen on a large timber broad, standing in a corner of the
yard: a small distance from it their is a revell put up which makes it
appear the more lively, so that we win no nearer then the revell would let
us. At this distance ye would think ye saw the heavens thorow the wal on
the other syde of it, so wonderously is the blew skie drawen; so that bring
me a man without acquainting him wt the devce he sal constantly affirme he
sies the lift on the other syde of the wall. On the same broad beneath the
skie on the earth, as ye would think, is drawen a woman, walking thorow a
montain in a trodden path, the woman, the mountain, the way, so cunningly
drawen that I almost thought I saw a woman walking on the other syde of the
wall over a hil throw the beaten rod. I constantly asserted also that the
broad was wery inaequall and that it had many utraisings[57] because I
seimed to sie as lively as ever I saw any thing pillars coming furth and
standing out wt a great deal of prominency from that which seimed to be the
skie, that at least I judged it halfe a ell farder out; yet it was but a
mistake; for its certainly knowen that the broad is as smooth and aequall
as can be. We also went out wtout the yeard to the back of the wall, wheir
by the back and sydes of the broad we discerned it to be of such thinnesse
that it could not admit any utcomings, as these pillars seimed to us.

    [57] Outraisings, reliefs.

In our coming home from Ruell we went in and saw the king's brother the
Duke of Orleances house, Sainct Low: it hath also a wery pretty yard, wheir
we saw many water-works also, and in the pond several swanes. We saw also
many orange trees, some of which had their ripe fruit, some very green,
some betwixt the 2, according to the natur of the orange tree. The house we
fand wery rich; many brave portraicturs; our kings portraitur is their
better done then ever I saw it in my life. The partition that divides one
roome from another is of strange glasse that showes a man his body in some
of them 5 tymes, so that I saw in one of them 5 John Lauders. After this we
came back to Paris, on the morrow after, being the 6 of May according to
the French account, the 26 of April according to the Scots. I joined wt the
messenger for Orleans severall accompanieng me to my horse, their went 4
Englishes alongs also, one of which was the doctor whom his cometicall face
told to have the clap.

We came to Orleans May 7 at night. I straight directed my course to Mr.
Ogilvyes, which I did that I might get the better accomodation knowing that
the Doctor also intended their. I delivered him the letter I brought him
from F. Kinloch, which was as followeth:

  Mr. John Ogilvy.

  _Paris, May 6, 1665._

  SIR,--Thesse are to accompany the bearer heirof, Mr. John Lauder, whose
  father is my wery much honored friend, his mother my neir kinswomen, and
  himselfe a very hopful youth inclined to vertue every way. He intends to
  stay som tyme wt you, theirfor I do earnestly recommend him to your best
  advice and counsell in what may concerne his welfare to assist him
  theirin, in all which I recommend him to you againe and againe as give
  he were my oune sone, assuring you that what favor or friendship you
  sall be pleased to show him, I sall ever acknowledge it as done to my
  selfe. He intends to improve his tyme in the study of the Laws, and
  having got some knowledge of the french tongue, he intends for Poictiers
  some moneths hence. Help him to a master that may come to him once a day
  and give him a lesson on the Instituts; and for the language I beseich
  you assist him in it. If their be no accommodation for him at your
  house, I pray you place him wheir he may be weil used and in good
  company. Let him not want what he stands in neid of for monyes or other
  necessaries, all which I sall make good to you thankfully upon advice
  from you. Thus recommending him to your care as my oune. Kissing your
  hand wt madam Ogilvyes, your daughters, and al your families, I rest
  your real friend and servant,

  FRANCIS KINLOCH.'

At my arrival heir I fand in pension wt him the Mr. of Ogilvy[58] wt his
servant, a very civil lad[59] James Hunter, young Thirlestan[60] wt his man
Patrick Portues: besides them also their ware English, French, and Germans.
The city (called Aurelia ather _a bonitate auroe_, or from Aurelian the
emperor who keipt a station heir) I fand to be as big as Edinborough laying
wt it also the next greatest citty of Scotland. I discovered likewise the
city to abound wt such a wast number of lame folk, both men and women, but
especially women, even many of them of good quality, that I verily beleive
their are more lame women their at Orleans then is in all Scotland or much
of France. Enquiring what the reason of this might be, the general woice
was that it proceeded from the nature of the Aurelian wine, which they
alledge to have such influence on the sperm of man as to produce a creature
imperfect in their legs. Others sayd it was the purity of the air about
Orleans whence the city has the name of Aurelia. But what influence the air
can have in this point is hardly explicable. Monsieur Ogilvy more
rationally informed me that he took it to be a race and generation of
peaple who transmitted it hæreditarly to their posterity, for which I meit
after[6l] a wery strong presumption: I saw a mother lame, not only the
daughters lame, but in the very same faschion that the mother; and this I
saw confirmed seweral tymes.

    [58] Apparently David, afterwards third Earl of Airlie. His
        grandfather was already dead, and he is afterwards called Lord
        Ogilvy in the Journal.

    [59] Probably the servant, though the punctuation is as in the text.

    [60] Thirlestan, probably Thurston in East Lothian, belonging to the
        family of Hunter.

    [61] Meit after, i.e. met afterwards.

Just the morrow after my arrival was keipt very solemly by the whole toune
in remembrance and commemoration of the valiant maid of Orleans, who, when
the English had reduced al France excepting only Orleans to their
obedience, and ware so fair for Orleans that they gained to the mids of the
bridge over Loyer, most couragiously animated the citizens and beat them
shamelesslie back: for which when the English got hir in their power they
brunt hir at Roan quick.

The ceremony we saw consisted of a procession partly spiritual or
Ecclesiastick, partly civil or Temporal. To make the spirituall their was
their all that swarm of grassopers which we are fortold sould aschend out
of the bottemlese pit; all these filthy frogs that we are fortold that
beast that false prophet sould cast out of his mouth, I mean that rable of
Religious orders within the body of that Apostolical and Pseud-apostolicall
Church of Rome. Only the Jesuits was wanting; the pride of whose hearts
will not suffer them to go in procession with the meaner orders. In order
went the Capuchines, then the Minimes, which 2 orders tho they both go
under the name of Cordeliers by reason of that cord they wear about their
midle, on whilk cord they have hinging their string of beads, to the end of
their string is hinging a litle brazen crosse, tho also they be both in on
habit, to wit long broun gowns or coats coming doune to their feet, a cap
of that same coming furth long behind just like a Unicornes horne, tho the
go both bar leged only instead of shoes having cloogs of wood (hence when I
saw them in the winter I pitied them for going bar leged; on the other
hand, when I saw them in the summer I pitied them that they ware necessitat
by the first institution of their orders never to quate their gounes which
cannot be but to hot for them; yea, never to suffer any linnen only wooll
to come neirest their skine), notwithstanding of this its easy to
distinguish them by the Clerical Tonsure, you sall never find a capuchin
but wt a very liberall bard: for the Minime he most not have any. Again in
their diet and other such things they differ much: the Minime most renounce
for ever the eating of fleche, their only food is fishes and roots; hence
Erasmus calles them fischy men (homines piscosos). Not so wt the
Capuchines. Their be also many other differences that tyme most discover to
me. Thir 2 orders our Bucanan means when he names _nodosa canabe
cinctos_.[62] To returne to our purpose their came also the Dominicans or
Jacobins, which are but one order having 2 names; then came the Chartereus
or Carthusians: both which go in a long white playding robe. Only the
Jacobins hood is black; the Carthusians is white: then followed the
Franciscans, who now are called Recollects because being al banished France
by reason of their turbulency and intromitting wt the state (of which wery
stamp they seim to have bein in the tyme of our James the 5, when he caused
Buchanan writ his Franciscani against them) by the prævalent faction the
Pope had in France then, they were all recalled, so that France held them
not so weil out as Venice do'es the Jesuits. Then came the Peres de
l'Oratere, who goes allmost in the same very habit wt the Jesuits. Then
cames the Augustines wt their white coat and a black gown above, after them
came the moncks of the order of St. Bennet or the Benedictin friers, who
goes in a white coat indeed, but above it he wears a black cloak to his
heels, wt the Jesuits he wears also a hat as they do. Then came the
chanoins of the Church of Sainct Croix in their white surplices above their
black gounes and their 4 nooked caps. Tyme sould feel me ere I could
nombair over all orders, but thir ware the most principall, each of which
had their oune crosse wt the crucifix carried by one of their order. This
much for the Ecclesiastick procession. After them came the tounes men in
armes; in a knot of whom went a young fellow who represented the Maid of
Orleans, clad in the same very habit, girt wt that sam very sword wt which
the Maid beat the Englishes. This went thorow all the toun.

    [62] At line 19 of Buchanan's _Franciscanus_ is this passage:

          'O sanctum festumque diem! cum cannabe cinctus
          Obrasumque caput duro velante cucullo,' etc.

During my abode heir, about the end of May, I had occasion to sie another
custome of the city. At that tyme of the year the tounes men put upon the
other syde of the bridge a pole as hie as the hiest house in Edenborough:
on the top of it they fasten a bird made of brasse at which they, standing
at the feet of the pole, shoot in order, beginning at the better, wt gunes,
having head peices on their heads, to sie who can ding it doun. I went and
saw them shoot, but no man chanced to shoot it doun that year I was their.

During the tyme I was heir their was so many fests or holy dayes that I
werily think the thrid part of their year is made up of them. The principal
was fest de Dieu, on which, such is the fury of the blinded papists, the
Hugonots are in very great hazard if they come out, for if they kneel not
at the coming by of the Hosty or Sacrament they cannot escape to be torn in
peices; whence I can compare this day to no other but that wheir the Pagans
performed their Baccanalian feasts wheir the mother used to tear hir
childrens. The occasion of the institution of this day they fainge to be
this. The Virgin appeared say they to a certain godly woman (who wt out
doubt hes been phrenetick and brain sick), and made a griveous complaint
that she had 4 dayes in the year for hir, and God had only the Sabath: this
being devulged it was taken as a admonition from God, whence they
instituted this day and ordainned it to be the greatest holy day in the
year. The most part of all the city was hung with tapistry, espescialy the
principall street which goes straight from the one end of the toune to the
other, which also was covered all above in some parts with hingings, in
other wt sheits according to the ability of the persones; for every man was
obliged to hing over against his oune house, yet the protestants ware not,
tho John Ogilvy was also called before the Judges for not doing it; yet
producing a pladoyes[63] in the Hugonets faveurs they had nothing to say
against it; yet they caused the wals of his house to be hung wt publick
hingings that belonged to the toune. For to sy the procession I went wt the
other pensioners to a place wheir when all others went to the knees, to
wit, when the Hosty came by, we might retire out of sight. I retired not so
far as they did, but boldly stood at a little distance that I aen might sy
it the better. This procession was on the 4 of June, a little after
followed Sainct Barnabas day. Then came mid-Summer even, on whiclk the
papists put on bonfires for John Baptists nativity. The day after, called
S. Jeans day, was keiped holy by processions.

    [63] Plaidoyer, pleading, legal argument.

On the 1 of July was S. Pierres day, on which I heard a chanoin preach in
S. Croy upon Piters confession, thou art the sone of the living God, very
weill, only he endevored to have Pierre for the cheife of the Apostles
because forsooth in the 10 of Mathew, wheir al the Apostles are named, he
finds Piter formost.

That I might have a full survey of the toune I went up to the steeple of
St. Croy, which truly is on of the hiest steeples I saw abroad; from it I
had a full visy of the toune, which I fand to be of that bigness specified;
then the sight of the country lying about Orleans, nothing can be
pleasanter to the eye. We saw also the forest of Orleans which environs the
northren syde of the city as a halfe moon: in it ar many wild beasts and
particularly boors; one of which, in the tyme of wintage, give it chance to
come out to the wineyards wheir they comit great outrages, the boors or
peasants uses to gather to the number of 2000 or 3000 from all the adiacent
contry wt dogs, axes and poles to kil the boor.

During my abode heir I went also to the Jesuits Colledge and discoursed wt
the praefectus Jesuitarum, who earnestly enquiring of what Religion I was,
for a long tyme I would give him no other answer but that I was religione
christianus. He pressing that he smeled I was a Calvinist, I replied that
we regarded not these names of Calvin, Luther, Zuinglius, yea not their
very persons, but in whow far they hold the truth. After much discourse on
indifferent matters, at our parting he desired me to search the spirits,
etc. I went and saw the Gardens of the Minims, the Jacbins, the
Carthusians, and the Peres de l'Orat.[64]

    [64] _Oratoire_.

Many contrasts ha'es bein betwixt J.O. and I. laboring to defend presbytery
and the procedures of the late tymes. During my abode heir 2 moneths I
attended the Sale de dance wt Mr. Schovaut as also Mr. le Berche,
explaining some of the institutions to me. John was my Mr. of language.

A part of the tyme that I was heir was also the Admiral of Holland, Obdams
Sone, who wt the companions carried himselfe marvelously proud. He and they
feed themselfes so up wt the hoop of the victory that they præpared against
the news sould come of the Engleshes being beat a great heap of punchions
of wine wheir wt they intended to make merry, yea as I was informed to make
Loyer run wt win. But when the news came the Hollanders was beat, that his
father was slain,[65] he and his sunk away we know not whither. That
ranconter that happened betuixt him and Sandwichs Viceadmiral of England
sone coming from Italy (which the Mr. of Ogilvy getting wit of from the
Germans came runing to my chamber and told me) is very remarkable. The
first bruit that came to our ears of that battle was that the Englishes had
lost, the Duc of York was slain. When the true news came the Hollanders
sneered at it, boasting that they would equippe a better fleet ere a 4
night. The French added also the pace, vilifieng and extenuating the
victory as much as they could, knowing that it was not their interest nor
concernment that the King of England sould grow to great. It was fought in
the channel eagerly for 3 dayes; and tho at a good distance from Calice,
yet the noice of their canon mad it al to shake.

    [65] Admiral Opdam was blown up with his ship in the battle near
        Lowestoft, when the Dutch fleet was defeated by the English,
        commanded by the Duke of York, 4th June 1665.

Some weeks that I was heir the heat was so great that afternoon (for then
it was greatest) I would not have knowen what to have done. It occasioned
also several tymes great thunders and such lightenings that sometymes ye
would have thought this syde of the heavens sometymes that, sometymes al on
a fire.

During my staying heir I have learned a lesson which may be of use to me in
the rest of our travels, to wit, to beware of keiping familiar company wt
gentlemens servants, for such a man sal never get respect from the
Mrs.[66]; to beware also of discoursing homly with anie servants. We sould
keip both their for at a prudent distance. The Mr. of Ogilvy and I ware
wery great. I know not what for a man he'el prove, but I have heard him
speak wery fat nonsense whiles.

    [66] i.e. Masters.

About 20 dayes ere I left Johns house the Mr. of Lour (Earle of Ethie's
sone)[67] wt his governour David Scot, Scotstorvets nephew, came to
Orleans; the Mr. the very day after took the tertian ague or axes....[68]

    [67] Apparently David, afterwards third earl. The title was changed
        from Ethie to Northesk after the Restoration. The Master was
        grandson to the first earl, who died in 1667.

    [68] Seven lines erased in MS.

That Globe that stands on the top of S. Croix is spoken to be of so large a
periphæria and circumference that 20 men may sit wt in about a round table.

One day as I was going to my Mr. of Institutes as I was entring in a lane
(about the martroy) I meit in the teeth the priests carrieng the Sacrament
(as they call it) with a crosse to some sick person: my conscience not
suffering me to lift of my hat to it, I turned back as fast as I could and
betook me selfe to another street wheir I thought I might be safe: it
followed me to that same very street, only fortunately I got a trumpket[69]
wheir I sheltred myselfe til it passed by.

    [69] Spiral stair.

Theirs a pretty maille their; we saw a better one at Tours one many
accounts; the longitude wheirof we meeted and fand it to be neir 1000
paces, as also that of Orleans is only 2 ranks of tries; in some places of
it 3; all the way ye have 4 ranks of tries all of a equall hight and most
equally sett in that of Tours.

About 10 days before my parting from Orleans at Mademoiselles invitation
the Mr. of Ogilvy and I went wt hir, hir mother and Mr. Gandy ther Tutor,
in their coach (for which I payed satly,[70] that being their policy) to
their country village 9 leagues of, situat in the midest of the forest of
Orleans, much of which is now converted into manured land. This tyme was
the first adventure I made of speaking the language, wheir they ware
pleased all to give me applause testifieng that I spake much for my tyme. I
took coach tymously in the morning before halfe 6 and returned the day
after about 8 at night. By the way we saw 2 places wery weill worth the
sieng, Shynaille and Chasteau neuf: Shynaille[71] for its garden and the
other both for its house and garden. At Synaille a great number of
waterworks; creatures of all shapes most artificially casting furth water:
heir ye may sy a frog sputing to a great hieght, their a Serpent and a man
of marble treading on his neck, the water gliding pleasantly partly out at
his meickle too, partly out at the Serpents mouth: in a 3 part a dog, in a
4, Lions; and all done most livelylie. We regrated that the prettiest
machine of all was broken; wheir was to be sein wtin a little bounds above
300 spouts sending furth water and that in sundry formes. In one place it
would arise uprightly as a spear; in another as a feather; in a trid[72] it
sould rise sydelings and so furth, and when it had left of ye sould not be
able to discern whence the water ishued. The main thing in the house of
Chasteau neuf was the rich furniture and hingings; yet the richest Tapistry
that used to be in that house was at that tyme in Paris; the master of the
house being one of the Kings Counsellers; yet these we saw ware wery rich;
some of them ware of leather stamped marvelously weill wt gold; others in
silver; others wrought but wondrous livelylie. From the house we saw the
extent of the yard, which was a monster to sy, being like a little country
for bigness, and yet in marvelous good order in all things, but especially
in the regularity of its walks, each corresponding so weill to the other;
having also a pretty forrest of tries on every syd of it: the circuit of
this yard will be nothing under 3 miles. I never saw a woman worse glid[73]
then she was (tho otherwise a weelfawored women) that took us thorow the
house. At night we lay at their country village.

    [70] i.e. Sautly, saltly.

    [71] I cannot find this name in the maps.

    [72] Third.

    [73] Gleyed, squint-eyed.

On the morning we went and hard the curé say Mass, wheir saw a thing we
had not sien before, to wit in a corner of the Church having 4 or 5 rocks
of tow, some tied wt red snoods, some wt blew. On the sieng of this I was
very sollicitous to know what it might mean. Having made my selfe
understood about it I was told that when any honest women died she might
leive a rock full of tow to be hung up in the church as a symboll that they
ware vertuous thrifty women. This put me in mind of Dorcas whose coats and
thrift the women showed to Paull after she was died. Mass being ended I
went and fell in discours with the Curé. We was not long together when we
fell hot be the ears: first we was on the Jansenists opinion about
Prædestination, which by a bull from the present Pope, Alex'r the 7, had
bein a litle before condemned at Paris; then we fell in one frie wil, then
one other things, as Purgatory, etc.; but I fand him a stubborn fellow, one
woluntary blind. We was in dispute above a hower and all in Latin: in the
tyme gathered about us neir the half of the parish, gazing on me as a fool
and mad man that durst undertake to controlle their curé, every word of
whose mouth, tho they understood it no more nor the stone in the wall did,
they took for ane oracle, which minds me of the miserablenese and
ignorantnese of the peasants of France above all other commonalty of the
world; our beggars leading a better life then the most part of them do.

In our returning amongs the best merriments we had was my French, which
moved us sewerall tymes to laughter; for I stood not on steeping stones to
have assurance that it was right what I was to say, for if a man seek that,
he sall never speak right, since he cannot get assurance at the wery first
but most acquire it by use. 4 leagues from Orleans, we lighted at
Gargeau[74] wt Maddle.[75] Ever after this Mademoiselle and I was wery
great, which I know not whow the Mr. of Ogilvy took, I being of much
shorter standing their in Orleans then he was.

    [74] Now Jargeau.

    [75] Mademoiselle.

Just the Sabath before my parting from Orleans began the Jesuits Logick and
Ethick theses to be disputed: the Mr. of Ogilvy and I went to hear, who
bleetly[76] stayed at behind all almost; I, as give I had bein a person
interested thrust into the wery first rank wheir at the distributor I
demanded a pair of Theses, who civilly gave me a pair, against which tho I
had not sein them till then, I durst have ventred a extemporary argument,
give I had knowen their ceremonies they used in their disputing and
proponing, which I fand litle differing from our oune mode. The most part
of the impugners ware of the religious orders; some of them very sharply,
some tolerably and some pittifully. The first that began was a Minim
against a Logicall Thes[is] that was thus, _Relatio et Terminus non
distinguuntur_. The fellows argument was that usual one, _quæ separantur
distinguuntur et hæc_, etc.; the Lad answered by a distinction, _quæ
separantur per se verum: per accidens, falsum_; and so they went on. The
lad chanced to transmit a proposition one tyme: the fellow in a drollery
replied, _si tu transmittas ego--revocabo_. Thus have we dwelt enough on
Orleans, its hy tyme for us to leeve it.

    [76] Blately, modestly.

On the 2'd day after this dispute, being the 14 of July wt the French and
consequently the 4 wt the Scots, I took boat at Orleans, the Mr. of Ogilvy
wt James his man, as also Danglebern accompanieng me to the boat. I left
Salt[77] Orleans and sett up for Blois. In the boat among others were 3 of
the order of Charité (as they call it) who beginning to sing their
redicoulous matins, perceiving that I concurred not wt them, they
immediatly suspected me for a Hæretick. One of them put me in mind of
honest James Douy not only for his wisage but also for his zeall and ardeur
he showed to have me converted and brought back to the mother church. That
he seimed to me to personate Mr. Douy not only in his wisage but also in
his strickness and bigotry--being oftner in telling of his beads then both
his other 2 companions fat-looged stirrows[78] ware--made me fall into the
abstract notion that thess who resemble in wisage usually agry in nature
and manners, which at that tyme I thought was to be imputed to that
influence which the temperament or crasis 4 _primarum qualitatum_ hath on
the soull to make it partaker of its nature.

    [77] Dear, expensive.

    [78] Fat-eared fellows. I presume that loog is lug, ear.

Betuixt Orleans and Blois of tounes on the river we saw first Merug,[79]
then Baniency.[80] At night we came to Blois, wheir I was the day after to
wiew the Toune. I fand it situat on a wery steep eminence, in some places
as wearisom to go up as our Kirkheugh. I went and saw the Kings Garden as
they call it; but nowise in any posture; only theirs besydes it a large
gallery on every syde, wheirof I counted 60 windows, and that at a
considerable distance one from another; it hath pillars also for every
window on whelk it stands. I went nixt and saw the Castle whilk stands on a
considerable eminence, only its the fatality theirof not to be parfaited,
which hath happened by the death of the Duke of Orleans, who had undertaken
the perfecting of it and brought it a considerable length. On the upmost
top of that which he hath done stands his portraict in marble. She that
showed in the rooms was a gay oldmouthed wife who in one chamber showed me
wheir one of the Kings was slain, the very place wheir he fell (the Duke of
Guise, author of the Parísien massacre) and the back door at which the
Assasinates entered: in another wheir one of their Kings as also seweral of
the nobility ware keipt prisoners, and the windows at whilk one of ther
queen mothers attempted to escape, but the tow proving to short she fell
and hurt hirself.

    [79] Meung, now Meun.

    [80] Beaugency.

When I was in the upmost bartizan we had one of the boniest prospects that
could be. About 2 leagues from us in the corner of a forest we saw the
Castle of Chamburgh,[81] a place wery worthy the sieng (as they say) for
the regularity of its bastimens. We saw wtin a league also tuo pretty
houses belonging to Mr. Cuthbert, whom we would have to be a Scot. I went
and saw sewerall Churches heir. I lay not at the Galere, but at the Chass
Royall: part of the company went to the Croix Blanche.

    [81] Chambord.

I cannot forget one passage that behappened me heir: bechance to supper I
demanded give he could give me a pullet, he promises me it. My pullet comes
up, and wt it instead of its hinder legs the hinder legs of a good fat
poddock. I know them weill enough because I had sien and eaten of them at
Orleans. I consedering the cheat called up my host and wt the French I
had, demanded him, taking up the leg, what part of the pullet that might
be, he wt a deal of oaths and execrations would have made me believe it was
the legs of a pullet, but his face bewrayed his cause; then I eated civilly
the rest of my pullet and left the legs to him: such damned cheats be all
the French.

Having bein a day at Blois I took boat for Tours in new company againe, of
some Frenchmen, a Almand and a Dutchman; wt whom I had again to do
vindicating my prince as the most just prince in the world in all his
procedures wt the Hollandez. The fellow behaved himselfe wery proudly.
Betuixt Blois and Tours we saw Amboise, which is in estime especially by
reason of its casle. As we was wtin halfe a league of Tours by the
carelesnese of the matelots and a litle pir of wind that rose we fell upon
a fixt mill in the river, so that the boat ran a hazard of being broken to
peices, but we wan of, only 3 or 4 dales in hir covert was torn of.

Arriving at Tours about 3 a cloack we all tooke another boat to carry us
about a league from the city to sie a convent of the Benedictines
(Marmoustier) a very stupendious peice give ended. It hath also a very
beautifull church, many of the pillars of it being of marble, others of
alabastre, and that of sundry coleurs, some red, some white, etc.: whence
on the entry theirs a prohibition hung up interdicting all from engraving
their name or any other thing on the pillars, least of deforming them. One
of the fathers of the order came and did let us sy the relicts of the
church which ware the first relicts I saw neir at hand: I having sien some
at a distance carried in processions at Orleans. Their we saw the heart of
Benedictus, the founder of their order, enclosed in a crystall and besett
wt diamonds most curiously. We of our company, being 6, ware all of the
Religion, whence we had no great respects for the relict; but their ware
som others their that ware papists; who forsooth bit[82] to sit doune on
their knees and kist. At which I could not contein my selfe from laughing.

    [82] Were obliged.

Their saw we also a great number of old relicts of one St. Martin. They had
his scull enclosed (give his scull and not of some theife it may be) in a
bowll of beaten silver. In a selver[83] besyde was shank bones, finger
bones and such like wery religiously keipt. He showed us among others also
a very massy silver crosse watered over wt gold very ancient, which he said
was gifted them by a Englishman. I on that enquired whow they might call
him. He could not tell til he cost up his book of memorials of that church;
and then he found that they called him Bruce, on which I assured him that
that was a Scots name indeed of a wery honorable family.

    [83] Salver.

Then we returned back to Tours, wheir we went first to sie their mail[84]
(which I counted by ordinar paces of whilk it was 1000.7 arbres).[85] About
the distance of less than halfe a league we saw the Bridge that lays over
the river of Chere, which payes its tribut to the Loier at Langes,[86] a
little beneath Tours. Next we went and saw some of their churches. In their
principal was hinging a iron chaine by way of a trophee. I demanding what
it might mean, I was told it was brought their by the Chevaliers or Knights
of Malta.

    [84] English, mall. Originally an alley where a game was played with a
        _mail_, a strong, iron-bound club, with long, flexible handle, and
        a ball of boxwood.

    [85] Arbre (arbour) probably means 'a shaded or covered alley or
        walk.'--Murray's _New English Dict_., s.v. 'Arbour.' The history
        of the word, with its double derivation from the Anglo-Saxon root
        of 'harbour' and the Latin _arbor_, is very curious. See
        Introduction, p. 1, note 2.

    [86] Langest in Blaeuw's map, now Langeais.

We lodged at the Innes.[87] To-morrow tymously we took boat for Saumur (St.
Louis). Al the way we fand nothing but brave houses and castles standing on
the river, and amongst other that of Monsoreau tuo leagues large from
Saumur, wheir the river of Chattellerault or Vienne, which riseth in the
province of Limosin, tumbleth it selfe into the Loier; this Monsereau is
the limits of 2 provinces; of Torrain, to the east of whilk Tours is the
capital, and of Anjou to the west, in whilk is Saumur, but Angiers is the
capitall. When we was wtin a league of Saumurs they ware telling us of the
monstrous outbreakings the river had made wtin these 12 years upon all the
country adiacent, which made us curious to go sie it. Whence we landed; and
being on the top of the bank we discovered that the river had bein seiking
a new channell in the lands adiacent, and had left a litle young Loier
behind it; the inundations of this river seims so much the stranger to
many, that finding it so shallow generally that we could not go a league
but we had our selfes to row and work of some bed of sand or other, makes
men to wonder whence it sould overflow so. Thir beds randers it wery
dangerous in the winters; yea in our coming doun we saw in 3 or 4 places
wheir boats had bein broken or sunk thir last winter; some part or other of
them appearing above as beacons. In sewerall places it wines so on the land
that it makes considerable islands, yea such as may give some rent by year.
At last we landed at Saumur, but before I leive the,[88] fair Loier, what
sall I say to thy commedation? Surely if anything might afford pleasure to
mans unsatiable appetit it most be the, give they be any vestiges of that
terrestrial paradise extant, then surely they may lively be read in the.
Whow manie leagues together ware their nothing to be sein but beautiful
arbres,[89] pleasant arrangements of tries, the contemplation of which
brought me into a very great love and conceit of a solitary country life,
which brought me also to pass a definitive sentence that give I ware once
at home, God willing, I would allot the one halfe of the year to the
country and the other halfe for the toune. Is it not deservedly, O Loier,
that thou art surnamed the garden of France, but I can stay no longer on
the, for I am posting to Mr. Doul my countrymans house, who accepts us
kindly. His wife was in the country, seing give the pleasures of the samen
might discuss and dissipat the melancholy she was in for the parting of her
sone, whom his father had some dayes before send for England, to wit, for
Oxford, meirly that he might be frie from his mothers corruptions, who
answering him to franckly in mony, the lad began to grow debaucht. Behold
the French women as great foolls as others. On the morrow after she
returned, amongs other expressions, she said, that it gave heer
encouragdement to let hir sone go wt the better will that she saw that I,
as a young man, had left my native country to come travell.

    [87] Innes for inn, cf. p. 38 at top.

    [88] i.e. thee.

    [89] See p. 20, note 3.

I went and saw my Lord Marquis of Douglasse[90] at Mr. Grayes, whom I was
informed to live both wery quietly and discontentedly, mony not being
answered him as it sould be to one of his quality; and this by reason of
discord amongs his curators, multitude wheirof hath oft bein sein to
redound to the damage of Minors. He was wearing his winter cloath suit for
lack of another. He had a very civill man as could be to his governour, Mr.
Crightoune, for whom I had a letter from William Mitchell.

    [90] James, second marquis, born 1646, died 1700.

Sabath fornoon we went togither and hard sermon in their church, which is
wtin the Toune; afternoon we took a walk out to a convent which they call
St. Florans. By the way he communicated to me his intentions for leaving
the Marquis, whom he thought wtin some few moneths would return for
Scotland, his affairs demanding his oune presence, as also his resolutions
of going into Italy give it took foot. I demanding him whow a man that came
abroad might improve his tyme to the best advantage, and what was the best
use that might be made of travelling. He freely told me that the first
thing above all was to remember our Creator in the dayes of our youth, to
be serious wt our God: not to suffer ourselfes to grow negligent and slack
in our duty we ow to God, and then to seik after good and learned company
whence we may learn the customes of the country, the nature and temper of
the peaple, and what wast diversity of humours is to be sein in the world.
He told me also a expression that the Protestant Minister at Saumur used to
him, whereby he taxed the most part of strangers as being ignorant of the
end they came abroad for, to wit, that these that came to sie Saumur all
they had to writ doune in their book was that they went and saw such a
church, that they drank good wines, and got good wictuals at the Hornes, a
signe wheir strangers resorts.

The convent we fand to be liker a castle than a Religious house. We saw a
large window, the covert wheirof was stenchells like those that are on the
windows of the Abby at Holyrood House; but very artificially all beat out
of one peice of iron, but not ioined and soudred togither as they used to
be. Saumurs is a pretty little toune wt fields upon all hands most
pleasant.

I, amongs other things, enquired at Mr. Doull what was their manner in
graduating their students their. He told me it was wholly the same wt that
in other places. They give out Theses which the students defended, only
they had a pretty ceremony about the close: each of these to be graduat got
a laurell branch, on the leaves wheirof was every mans name engraven in
golden letters. Item, he said that when he reflected on the attendance that
the Regents in Scotland gave to ther classes, he thought he saw another
Egyptiacall bondage, for wt them they attended only 4 dayes of the weeks,
and in thess no longer than they took account of ther former lesson, and
gave them out a new one, which they send them home to gett.

On a afternoon I was their I made a tour doune throu the suburbs of the
toune to the Convent of Nostre Dame des Ardilliers.[91] On my return Mr.
Doull and Mr. Crightoun demanding of me wheir I had bein, I freely told:
wheirupon they fell to to scorne me, asking what I went to seek their. I
told meerly to walk. They alleadged that John Ogilvy at Orleans bit to have
told me of the place; that it was the most notorious part of France for
uncleanness, and that women that could not gett children at home, coming
their ware sure to have children. To speak the truth the place seimed to me
wery toun like, for their came a woman to me and spered whey I all alone.

    [91] The Church of Notre Dame d'Ardiliers, of the sixteenth century,
        was enlarged by Richelieu and Madame de Montespan.

The night before my parting from Saumur a young gallant of the toune, to
show his skill, showed the wholle toune some fireworks in a boat on the
river, but they ware wery pittifull, the principall thing we saw being only
some fireballs which they cost up in the air to a considerable hight som
tymes.

Theirs one thing we most not forget in the river. In our coming doune in
sewerall places on the syde of the rivers bank we saw pleasant little
excrescencyes of litle rocks and craigs, which makes exceidingly to the
commendation of the places. In thes craigs are built in houses, which be
the vertue of Antiperistasis is cold in summer and hot in winter, tho their
be some of them they dare not dwell in in winter by reason of the looseness
of the earth then.

Having stayed 2 dayes in Saumur I hired horse for Poictiers, only the
fellow who aught the horse running at my foot. We rode by Nostre Dame and
along the side of Loier as far as Monsereau. Heir I'm sure I was thrie
miles togither under the shade of wast valnut tries on each syde ladened wt
fruit, great abondance of which I meit all the way thorow. At Monsereau I
left Loier, and struck south east be the banks of the river of Chasteleraut
in Turrain, of whilk Tours is the capitall, the most renouned toune of
France for manufacturies of silks of all sorts. We dined at Chinon,
standing on that river 5 great leagues from Saumur. As we ware about a
league from Chinon, I leiving my guid a considerable distance behind me,
thinking that I bit always to keep close be the river syde, I went about a
mile wrong. The fellow thinking I was in the right way he strikes in the
right; I begines to look behind me. I cannot get my eye upon him; stands a
long tym under a shade very pensive. First I saw some sheirers (for in
France it was harvest then, being only the beginning of July wt the Scots)
at their dinner. I imagined that the fellow might have sit doune wt them to
take scare.[92] After waiting a long tyme I began to steep back, and
drawing neir the sheirers I could not discover him, whence a new suspition
entred in my head, because I had given him at Chinon, on his demand, 14
livres of 17 which I was to give him to defray all my charges to Poictiers,
that he had sliped away wt that that he might bear no more of my charges,
being sure enough that he would get his horse when I brought it to
Poictiers. All this tyme I never dreamed I could be out of the way, yet I
spered at the sheirers what might be the way to Richelieu, who told me I
was not in the way. Then I know the fellow bit to be gone that way, whence
I posted after him, and about a league from that place I overtook him
laying halfe sleiping in a great deall of care, the poor fellow wery blaith
to sy me. I demanded what was his thoughts, whether he thought I was a
voler that had run away wt his horse. He said he quaestioned not in the
least my honesty but he began to suspect I might have fallen amongs
robbers.

    [92] Share, pot-luck.

Thus we came to Chopigni,[93] a pretty village a league from Richelieu, and
about 5 a cloack we entred Richelieu, a toune that give yeell consider its
bigness it hath not its match in France. For being about a mile in circuit,
besides a wery strong wall, it hath a considerable ditch environing it
having something of the nature of a pond; for it abounds wt all sorts of
fisches. The French calls it une canale. Being entred the toune ye have one
of the prettiest prospects thats imaginable. It hath only one street, but
that consisting of such magnifick stately houses that each house might be a
palace. Ye no sooner enter unto the toune but ye have the clear survey of
the whole wt its 4 ports; which comes to pass by the aequality of the
houses on both sydes of the street, which are ranked in such a straight
line that a Lyncaean or sharpest eye sould not be able to discover the
least inaequality of one houses coming out before another. They are all
reased also to the same hieght, that ye sall not sy one chimly hier then
another: for they are al 3 story hy and built after that same mode window
answering to window; so that ye sall sy a rank of about a hundred windows
in a straight line.

    [93] Champigny.

But I hast to the Castle, which is bueatiously environed wt that same
canale on the banks of which are such pleasant arrangements
(palissades)[94] and umbrages of tries making allies to the length of halfe
a mile; in which I fand that same I had observed in the toune: the tries
ranked so aequally that its wonderfull to hear; tho monstrously hy yet all
of them observing such a aequality that ye sould find none arrogating
superiority over his neighbour. We entred the castle by a stately draw
bridge over the canale. Over the first gate stands a marble Lowis the 13,
this present kings father, on horseback: on his right hand stands Mars the
God of Armes; on his left Hercules wt his great truncheon or club.

    [94] Interlined, palissades. Rows of trees planted close. Term
        derived from fortification. See Littré's _Dict_.

Having past this gat, we entred into the court or close round about whilk
the palace is built. The court is 3 tymes as large as the inner court of
the Abbey.[95] Al around the close stand a wast number of Statues
infinitely weill done: only I fand they had not provided weill for the
curiosity of spectateurs in withholding their names and not causing it to
be engraven at their feet. They informed me they ware the statues of the
bravest old Greeks and Romans: as of Alex'r, Epiminondas, Cæsar, Marcellus,
and the rest. By the wertue of powerful money all the gates of the Castle
unlockt themselves. The first chamber we entred into he called the chamber
de Moyse, getting this denomination from the emblem hinging above the
chimly, wheirin was wondrously weill done the story whow Pharoes daughter
caused hir maid draw the cabinet of bulrushes wheirin Moses was exposed
upon the Nile to hir sitting on the land. This room (the same may be
repeated of the rest) was hung wt rich tapistry and furnished wt wery brave
plenishings, as chairs, looking glasses, tables and beds. For the
præserving of the curtains each bed had _tours de lit_ of linnen sheets,
which, causing to be drawen by, we fand some hung wt rich crimson velvet
hingings; others wt red satin; others wt blew; all layd over so richly wt
lace that we could hardly decerne the stuffe. We fand one bed in a chamber
(which they called one of the kings chambers) hung wt dool, which when
occasion offered they made use of. This minded me of Suintones wife, who
when she was in possession of Brunstone[96] had hir allyes and walks so
appropriated to particular uses that she had hir ally wheirin she walked
when she was in mourning, another when she had one such a goune, and so
furth. But to return, in another chamber we was put to the strait of
exercing our _Liberum Arbitrium_. Many pleasant objects offering themselfes
to our wiew at the same tyme, we was at a pusle wt which of them to begin:
for casting up our eyes to the cieling we fand it cut out most artificially
unto sewerall sorts of creatures. Theirs a lion standing ramping ready as
ye would think to devore you; yonder a horse; yonder a dog at the chass;
and all this so glittering by reason that its covered wt gold that it
would dazell any mans eyes. But calling away your eyes from this we
deschended to the walls of the chamber, wheir ye have standing in one broad
Justice, a martiall like woman wt a sword in hir one hand, and the balance
in the other. On her right stands Verity, a woman painted naked to show
that the truth most be naked since it demands no coverture. On the other
stands Magnanimity, a woman of a bravadoing countenance. In another broad
stands Prudence. In a 3d (la chambre de Lucresse) as a emblem of Chastity
we have the story of Lucretias rapture by Tarquinius Superbus sone: first
ye have him standing at hir chamber door wt his men at his back looking
thorow the lock whither she was their or not; in the same broad[97] ye have
represented the violence he used to hir; then as the epiloge of the tragædy
ye have hir killing herselfe. In another broad ye have to the life don the
story of Judith bringing away the head of Holofernes.

    [95] Holyrood.

    [96] When the Duke of Lauderdale was under forfeiture the estate of
        Brunston, belonging to him, was granted to Swinton of Swinton.--
        Sir G. Mackenzie's _Memoirs_, p. 48.

    [97] Panel.

In another chamber ye have Lewis the 13 portraicts wt those of all the rest
of the royall family and the most part of the courtiers, counsellers and
statesmen of that tyme, togither wt a embleme of the joy of the city of
Paris at the nativity of this King.

Of this chamber goes a pitty but pretty litle cabinet for Devotion. Their
stands a large crucifix of marble wonderously weill done, round about hings
the 12 Apostles wt the sufferings they ware put to. Their may ye sie the
barbarous Indians knocking Bartholemew, who was spreading the gospell among
them, wt clubs to death; and so of the rest.

In another chamber on the cielery we have panted Thetis dipping hir sone
Achilles in the Ocean to render him immortall. She hath him by the foot,
whence in all his parts he becames immortal and impatible, save only in the
sole of his feet, which ware not dippt. Next ye have him slain by Paris
whiles he is busy on his knees at his devotion in the temple; Paris letting
a dart at him thorow a hole of the door, which wounding him in the sole of
his foot slow him. Nixt ye have Achilles dragging Hectors dead body round
about the walls of Troy. Then ye have Priamus coming begging his sones
body. Ye have also Diomedes and Glaucus frendly renconter wt the exambion
they made of their armes.

In another chamber we found wery delicat weill wrought Tapistry wheirin
ware to be sien, besydes sewerall other stories taken out of Homer, the
funestous and lamentable taking of Troy.

In this same chamber saw we hinging the cardinals oune portraiture to the
full, in his ride robes and his cardinals hat wt a letter in his hand to
tel that he was the Kings secretary: his name is beneath. _Armandus
Richeleus anagrammatized Hercules alter_. Surely the portrait represents a
man of wery grave, wise and reverend aspect. Besydes him hinges the
portraict of his father and mother. His father had bein a souldier; the
cardinal was born in Richeliew.

In another chamber was hinging 3 carts[98] (al done by Sampson), the one
exceeding large of France done by one Sanson, the Kinges Geographer; the
2nd of Italy wt the Iles adiacent of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, etc.; the
3d of the countryes that lyes on the famous river of Rhein, which runes
thorow Germany, and in the low countries embrasses the sea.

    [98] Maps.

At length we came unto a very large gallery, wheir hinges the emblems of al
the things of greatest consequence that happened in France during the tyme
of the Cardinall, as the beseigding of tounes that revolted, and the
stratagemes by whilk some of them were taken. At each end of the gallery
stands a table, but I sal confine my selfe to speak only of the one.
Removing a cover of leather their appeares a considerable large table as
long as etc., the richest beyond controversy of France: it consistes of
precious stones and diamonds, but joined wt such wonderfull artifice that a
man would easily take it for one inteer stone of sewerall colours, the
proportion also of their joinctures, each colour answering to another,
makes much to the commendation of it. Give their be a rid Sardix heir, it
hath direictly of that same very bigness another Sardix answering to it
their; or ye may suppose it to be a blew saphir. In the wery center and
midle of the table is planted about the meikledoom[99] of a truncher[100] a
beautifull green smaradyes; round about it stands a row of blew saphire,
then another of rid diamonds; then followes a joincture of golden
chrysolites, the bigness wheirof renders them wery wonderfull, being
exceeding rare to be found of the halfe of that bigness. Their is not any
coleur which is not to be found amoungs the Stones of that table. They are
joined so marvelously that nothing can be smoother or æequaler. Thus
breifly for the house.

    [99] Size.

    [100] Trencher.

Of one of the balconies we descryed the garden, which was wery pleasant,
having great resemblance wt that of Chateau Neuf, up and doune it ware
growing Holyhaucks of all colours; but I cannot stay no longer upon the,
for I am hasting to your church, which I find wery rich, as generally all
the churches in France are.

After I had supped I could not but come and wiew the situation and walls
wtout; but fareweil, for the morrow night setts me in Poictiers. On the hy
way as I travelled I mett bothe aples and plumes, which I looked not one as
forbidden fruit, but franckly pulled. As soon as I came wtin sight of
Poictiers I welcomed it heartily as being to be a place of rest to me for a
tyme. Entering into the suburbes of the toune, I easily discovered the
reason of our Buchannans expression, _Pictonum ad scopulos_: for then and
afterwards I discovered it to be environed wt raged rocks and craigs, the
toune it selfe also to be situat on a considerable eminence; and give ye
take in all its circuit it neids not yeeld much to Paris in bigness; only
much of it is filled up wt spatious gardens for the most part belonging to
religious orders, sometymes of men sometymes of women. It hath also wines
that growes within its circumference, as these that grow in the place of
the Scots walk may testify.

Having entred the toune we sought out Mr. Garnier the Apothecaries, for
whom I had a letter from Mr. Doull at Saumurs, who on that accepted us
kindly enough, only they had not such accomodation as I demanded, whence I
took occasion to deliver a letter I brought wt me out of Scotland from
young John Elies to Mr. Daillé, wt whom I entred pensionar about 8 dayes
after I had bein in Poictiers, to wit 28 July 1665.

I cannot bury in silence the moderation of Mr. Garniers wife, so wertous
and sparing a house wife she was that Wine never entred in hir mouth.
Always hir drink was pure water, tho no restraint was laying upon hir to do
it.

As the nature of thir peeple is to be wery frugall, so I fand that they
ware right Athenians loving to tell and to hear news, which may be marked
also in the most part of them that live on the Loier; for I had not bein a
night in Poictiers when all that Street, and in sewerall other places of
the toune, sundry knew that a Scotsman was come to the toune; that he came
from Saumur, that he brought a letter for Mr. Garnier wt whom he quartred.
The first night on my arrivall after I had supped came in my Hosts brother,
a marchand, who amongs others enquired if I might know Mr. Douglas. I
replied, yes; he added that he had left a child behind him, which tho Mr.
Daillé owned for his, yet it had wholly a Scots cry not a French.

The morning after my arrivall they chanced to have sermon in the
Protestants church at Quatre Picket, wheir I fand Colinton,[101] who a
little before had returned from the Rochell, wheir he had bein also on the
Isle of Rhee and that of Oleron. He after dinner took me to Mr. Alex'rs,
wheir I found all our Countrymen convened, only Alex'r Hume was at that
tyme out in the Campaigne some leagues. Their I fand my right reverend good
Sir Mr. Patrick Hume,[102] for whom I had two letters, one from
Pighog,[103] another from John Suty at London, David Hume, for whom I had a
letter from Saumur, Mr. Scot, Ardrosses sone, and Mr. Grahame, Morphees
sone. Shortly after I saw both the 2 Alex'rs, Alexander the professour, to
whom I delivred a letter from young J. Elies and Alex'r Hume: them all one
night I took in to a Hostellery called le Chappeau d'Or and gav them their
supper, which cost me about 17 livres 10 souse.

    [101] Probably James Foulis, son of Sir James Foulis, Lord Colinton,
        advocate 1669, a lord of Session 1674, with the title of Lord
        Reidford.

    [102] The friend thus playfully described may be Sir Patrick Hume,
        advocate, who often appears as a litigant in Fountainhall's
        _Decisions_.

    [103] See page 145, note 2.

About 8 dayes after I had bein in Poictiers was keipt be the Jesuits
Ignatius Loyola their founders day, whence in the Jesuits Church their was
preaching a fellow that usualy preaches, extolling their patron above the
wery skies; evicting whow that he utstripped infinitly the founders of all
other orders, let it be St. François, St. Dominick, or be who he will, by
reason that he founded a order to the universal good of Christendome; the
order not being tyed to one place, as other religious are, but much given
to travelling up and doune the world for the conversion of souls, which
truly may be given as a reason whey all that order are usually so
experimented and learned; for their are of them in Americk itselfe. From
all this he concluded that Ignatius was and might deservedly be named the
universall Apostle of the Christian World. He showed also the manner of his
conversion to that manner of life; whow he had bein a soger (he was a
Spaniard by nation) til his 36 or 40 year of age. One tyme in a battell he
had receaved a wound right dangerous, during the cure of this wound one
tyme being some what veary and pained he called for a Story or Romance.
They having none their, some brought a devot book termed the Saints Rest,
not that of Baxters; in which he began to read wt a sort of pleasure, but
wtout any touch. At lenth continuing he began to feel himselfe sensibly
touched, which wrought so that he wholly became a new man; and wt the
permission and confirmation of the Pope then instituted the order.

A litle after followed St. Dominicks day observed by the Jacobins, wheir I
went to hear his panegyrick preached. Their preached a fat-looged[104]
fellow of the order. His text was out of the 36 of Ecclesiasticus, _Vas
auroeum[105] repletum omni lapide proetioso_: all his sermon ran to make
Dominick this vessell. He deduced all that a man might be praised for from
the 3 fold sort of dueties: 1, these we ow to God; 2, these towards our
neighbours; and 3, these towards himselfe. For the vertues that are
relative to God, he numbered them up to 13, and that out of Thomas, whom
they follow in all things; amongs which were piety, sanctité, zeal for
Religion, which broke out to that hieght that he caused sundry of the poor
Albingenses, over the inquisition of whom he was sett, to be brunt; but
this he mentioned _no_. For duties of the 2nd sort he numbered up out of
the same Thomas amongs others thir, Chastité. Of Dominicks chastity he sayd
he was as sure as of one thats new borne. Charité, which was so great one
tyme that having nothing to give to the poor, he would have given himselfe
to a poor widow woman; at which we could not but laugh, tho' his meaning
was that he would have bein content to sell himselfe that the woman might
get the money. He forgot not also his strictness of life and discipline, so
that after his death their was found a cord in wtin his wery flech he
girded him selfe so strait wt it. Heir he recknoned upe his prudence and
magnanimity. Amongs theduties a man owes to himselfe amongs others he
reckned up Temperance; in which he would gladly have us beleiving that St.
Dominick never eated any in his dayes, so great was his abstinence. Then he
came to compare him wt the cælestial powers, which he divided out of
Dionysius pseudareopagita into the Hierarchies receaved in the Romish
Church, of Angels, Archangels, Powere, Dominations, Cherubins, Seraphines,
etc., and then showed his Dominick to excell them all. Many stories he told
us which are to be seen in his legends, but never a word of the zeal he had
when he sat doune and preached to the birds (and seing a frier kissing a
nun he thanked God that their was so much charité left in the world). His
epiloge was that St. Dominick was worth all the Saincts of them. And to
speak the truth, beleiving him he made him on of the perfectest men of the
world, subject to no imperfection. I could discover no difference he made
betuixt him and Christ.

    [104] See p. 17, note 2.

    [105] _For aureum._

The forme of their preaching is thus. After they are come unto their pulpit
they signe their foorfront and breast with the signe of the cross wt that
in nomine patris, filij, and S.S., as a means to chass away Satan; then
they go to their knees for a wery short space as our bischops do; then
raising they read their text; after which they have a short prayer direct
to Christ and his mother, or even the Sainct, if they be to speak of any,
for their aid and assistance. Then they preach; after which thess that
please to walk may do it. The rest stay out the Vespres.

The forme of the protestant churches differs not much from ours. On the
Sabath morning during the gathering of the congregation they sing a psalme;
the minister coming up by a short sett forme of exhortation, stirring them
up to ioin wt him in prayers, he reads a sett forme of confession of sines
out of their priers ecclesiastiques or Liturgie; which being ended they
singes a psalme, which the minister nominats, reading the first 2 or 3
lines of that to be sung, after which they read no more the line, as we do,
but the peaple follows it out as we do in Glory to the Father, The psalme
being ended, the minister has a conceaved prayer of himselfe adapted for
the most part to what he'es to discourse on. This being ended he reads his
text. Having preached, then reads a prayer out of their Liturgy, then sings
a psalme, and then the blissing.

About a 4 night after I had bein their some 2 chanced to be taken in the
order of the Capuchins, of which order this is strange that the poorest yet
they are numerousest, their being dailly some or other incorporating
themselfes, Their poverty is such that they have nothing to sustein them
but others charité when they come begging, and that every 24 hours. They
having nothing layd up against tomorrow, if their be any day amongs others
wheirin they have gotten litle or nothing, notwtstanding of this they come
al to the Table, tho' nothing to eat. Each man sayes his grace to himselfe,
their they sit looking on one another, poor creatures, as long as give they
had had something to eat. They fast all that day, but if their be any that
cannot fast it out, then he may go doune to the yard and houck out 2, 3
carrots to himselfe, or 'stow some likes some sibows, beets or such like
things, and this is their delicates. If their be any day wheirin they have
gotten more then suffices them all, the superplus they give to the poor.
The convent hath no more rent than will defray their charges in keiping up
their house about their ears. Al this do thir misers under the hopes of
meriting by the samen: yet I would be a Capuchin before any other order I
have sein yet.

To sie the ceremony of their matriculation unto the order I went wt my good
sire, wheir the principal ceremony was that they cast of their cloathes
wheirwt they ware formerly cloathed and receaves the Capuchines broun weid,
as also they get the clerical tonsure, the cord about their west, and the
clogs of wood on their bare feet. A great number of speaches being used in
the intervalls containing as is probable their dueties, but we could not
understand them for the bruit. At the point of each of them all the peaple
cried Amen. Finaly we saw them take all the rest of ther brethren by the
hand, all of them having burning torches in their hands.

After this, on August 14, came about Ste. Radegondes daye, wheiron I saw
sewerall things: first wt Mr. Bouquiet we went doune to the church of Ste.
Radegonde, which stands almost on the bord of the river Sein, which runes
by Poictiers; and their visited hir tomb; but we had a difficulty of accez,
such multitude was their dronning over their prayers, _Sainte Radegonde,
Radegonde, priez pour nous et nos ames_, and this a 100 tymes over, at each
tyme kissing the sepulchre stone which standes reasonable hy.

From this we went to hir Chappell that stands besydes the Church of St.
Croix, to sy the impression that Christ left wt his foot (so sottish is
their delusion) on a hard great stone when he appeared to Ste. Radegonde as
she was praying at that stone. The impression is as deip in the stone as a
mans foot will make in the snow; and its wonderfull to sy whow thir zealots
hath worn the print much deiper in severall parts wt their continuall and
frequent touching of it thorow the iron grate wt which it is covered, and
kissing it on Ste. Radegondes day when the iron grate is removed; according
to that, _gutta cavat lapidem_, etc. All this they do thinking it the least
reverence they can do to the place wheir our Saviours foot was. For
immediatly upon the notification of that by Ste. Radegonde they caused
erect a chappel above the stone, and hath set up Christ upon the right of
the impression wt Capuchin shoes on his feet: and on the left Ste.
Radegonde on hir knees wt hir hands folded praying to him. On the wall
besydes they have this engraven, _Apparuit Dominus Jesus sanctae beatae
Radegundae et dixit ei, tu es speciosa gemma, noverim te praetiosam in
capite meo_ (and wt that they have Christ putting his fingers to his head)
_gemmam_.

Out of this we came to the Church of St. Croix, wheir just as we were
entring ware coming out 2 women leading a young lass about the Age of 18
who appeared evidently to be distracted or possessed by some Dewill, by hir
horrid looks, hir antick gestures, and hir strange gapes: hir they had had
in the Church and had caused hir kneell, they praying before the Altar for
hir to Ste. Radegonde, whom they beleived had the power to cure hir. The
priests knaveries are wery palpable to the world in this point, who usually
by conjurations, magicall exorcismes as their holy water, consecrated oill,
take upon them to dispossess or cure sick persones, but so far from having
any effect, that the Devill rather gets great advantage by it. Having
entred the Church, standing and looking earnestly about to al the corners
of the church, and particularly to the Altar, which was wery fine, wt as
great gravity as at any tyme, a woman of faschion on hir knees (for indeed
all that ware in the Church ware on their knees but my selfe) fixing hir
eyes upon me and observing that I nether had gone to the font for water,
nether kneelled, in a great heat of zeal she told me, _ne venez icy pour
prophaner ce sainct lieu_. I suddenly replied, _Vous estez bien devotieuse,
Madame; mais peut estre Vostre ignorance prophane ce sainct lieu d'avantage
que ma presence_. This being spoken in the audience of severals, and amongs
others of a preist, I conceived it would not be my worst to retire, which I
did.

That same afternoon I went to Mr. Alex'rs to seik Patrick Hume, wheir I
faud them hearing him explaine some paragraphe of the Institutes: wheir Mr.
Alex'r and I falling on some controverted points betuixt us and them, I
using a great deall of liberty citing frome his oune authors as Bellarmine,
etc., I angred him exceedingly. Then Patrick Hume, David, Mr. Grahame and I
went to walk: and particularly to the pierre levé or stone erected a litle
way from the city. The story or fable wheirof is this: once as Ste.
Radegonde was praying the Devil thought to have smoored[106] or crushed her
wt a great meikle stone greater than 2 milstones, which God knows whence he
brought, but she miraculously supported it wt hir head, as the woman heir
carries the courds and whey on their head. Surly she had a gay burden; and
never rested till she came to that place wheir its standing even now. They
talk also that she brought the 5 pillars on which its erected till above a
mans hight in hir lap wt hir. I mocking at this fable, I fell in inquiry
whence it might have come their, but could get no information; only it
seimed probable to me that it might have bein found in the river and
brought their. On the top of this stone I monted, and metted[107] it thorow
the Diametrum and found it 24 foot; then metted it round about and found it
about 60 foot. Coming doune and going beneath it we discovered the place
wheir hir head had bein (_nugae_).

    [106] Smothered.

    [107] Measured.

We went and saw a stately convent the Benedictines ware building, the
oldest and richest order of France. To them it is that Nostre Dame at
Saumur belongs; to them belongs the brave bastiments we saw at Tours, in
which city as I was on the Loier I told 16 considerable steeples. We saw
the relicts of a old Convent, wheirupon enquiring whow it came to be
demolished, he replied it was in Calvines tyme, who studied his Law in
Poictiers; and then turning preacher he preached in the same very hall
wheir we hear our lessons of Law. His chamber also is to be sein wheir he
studied on the river syde.

I cannot forgett a story of Calvin which Mr. Alex'r told us saying it was
in their Histories, that Calvin once gladly desiring to work a miracle
suborned a fellow to feigne himselfe dead that so he might raise him to
life. Gods hand was so visible upon the fellow that when he went to do it
he verily died and Calvin could not raise him: this was in Poictiers. And
it minded me first that I had read almost the like cited out of Gregorious
Turonensis History by Bellarmine in his treatise _de Christo_ refuting
Arianisine of a Arian bischop who just so suborned one to feinge himselfe
blind that he might cure him, but God really strake him blind. Also it
minded me of a certain Comoedian (who was to play before the Duc of
Florence) who in his part had to act himselfe as dead for a while. He that
he might act himselfe as dead wt the more life and vigeur agitated and
stirred or rather oppressed his spirits so that when he sould have risen he
was found dead in very truth. As also 3ly of a certain Italian painter who
being to draw our Saviour as he was upon the Cross in his greatest torment
and agony (he caused a comoedian whose main talent was to represent sorrow
to the life), he caused one come and sit doune before him and feigne one of
the dolfullest countenances that he could that he might draw Christ of
him; but he tuise sticked it, wt which being angred he drew out a knife and
stobbed the person to the heart; and out of his countenance as he was
wrestling wt the pangs of death he drow Christ on the cross more lively
then ever any had done, boasting that he cared not to dy for his murder
since he had Christ beholden to him for drawing him so livelylie. I
remember also of a passage that Howell in a letter he writes from Geneva
hes, that Calvin having bein banished once by a prævalent faction from the
city again being restored, he sould proudly and blasphemously have applied
to himselfe that saying of David, proper to Christ, the stone which the
builders refused the same is become the head of the corner. But granting
that all thir to be true, as they are not, they ware but personall escapes,
neither make they me to think a white worse of his doctrine. But as to the
point of miracles its notoriously knowen that the Church of Rome abuses the
world wt false miracles more then any: for besydes these fopperies we have
discovered of Ste. Radegonde they have also another. Thus once St. Hilary
(who was bischop of Poictiers about the 6 century, and who hes a church
that bears his name, erected on the wast syde of the toune a little from
the Scotes walk), about a league from the toune (thus reportes _les annales
de Aquitaine_), as he was riding on his mule Christ meit him. His beast, as
soon as it saw our Saviour, fell doune on the knees of it. As a testimony
wheirof that it fell doune they show at this day the _impressa_ both its
knee and its foot hes made miracoulously in the rock, but this is _fort mal
a propos_; since they seem to mak their St. Hilary Balaam; and his mulet
Balaam his ass which payed reverence to God before its mastre. This fable
minded me of the story we have heir at home, that we can show in Leith Wind
craigs the impressa that Wallace made wt his foot when he stood their and
shoot over the steeple of Edenburgh. Yet their all these things are
beleived as they do the bible.

When we was wtout the city we discovered that it would signify litle if it
wanted the convents and religious houses, which ware the only ornaments of
the city. This much for the 14 of August, I had not bein so much out a
fortnight before put it all together.

Heir I most impart a drollery which happened a little before in Poictiers.
Some Flamans had come to the toune and taken up the quarters in a certain
Innes.[108] While they ware supping, the servant that attended them chanced
to let a griveous and horrid fart. The landlady being in the roome and
enquiring give she thought not shame to do so, she franckly replied, _sont
Flamans, madame, sont Flamans, ils n'entendent pas_; thinking that because
they ware strangers that understood not the language, they understood not
also when they hard a fart.

    [108] Inn.

O brave consequence, I went one night to the Marché Vieux and saw some
puppy playes, as also rats whom they had learned to play tricks on a
tow.[109]

    [109] Rope.

Just besyde that port that leads to Quatre Picket (de St. Lazare) or Paris
is erectcd a monument of stone, something in the fashion of a pyramide. I
enquiring what it meant, they informed me the occasion of it was a man that
lived about 3 or 4 years ago in the house just forganst it, who keiping a
Innes, and receaving strangers or others, used to cut their throats and
butcher them for their money; which trade he drave a considerable tyme
undiscovered. At lenth it coming to light as they carried him to Paris to
receave condigne punishment, they not watching him weill enough he killed
himselfe whence they did execution on his body, and erected that before the
door, _ad æternam rei memoriam._ I think they sould have razed his house
also, yet their is folk dwelling in it prcsently.

I went also and saw the palais wheir the Advocats used to plead but it had
fallen down by meer antiquity about 3 moneths before I came to Poictiers
whence the session had translated themselfes to the Jacobines, whom I went
and saw their. In the falling of the palais it was observable that no harm
redounded to any, and that a certain woman wt a child in hir armes chancing
to be their on day raising out of a desk wheir she was sitting she was
hardly weill gon when a great jest[110] fell (for it fell by degries) and
brok the desk to peices.

    [110] Joist.

Their hinges bound upon the wall wt iron chaines the relicts of a dead
hideous crocodile, which, tho' it be infinitly diminished from what it was
(it being some hundred years since it was slain), yet its monstrously great
wt a wast throat. This, they say, was found in one of their prisones, which
I saw also. On a tyme a number of prisoners being put in for some offences,
on the morrow as some came to sie the prisoners not one of them could be
found, it having eaten and devored them every one. Not knowing whow to be
red of this trubulsom beast no man daring attempt to kill it, they profered
one who was condemned to dy for some crime his life give he killed it.
Wheir upon he went to the prison wt a weill charged pistoll as it seimingly
being very hungry was advancing furiously to worry him he shoot in at a
white spot of its breast wheir its not so weill armed wt scalles as
elsewheir and slow it and wan his life.

I enquiring whow that beast might come their it seimed most probable that
it was engendred their _ex putri materia_, as the philosophers speaks, tho
I could hardly weill believe that the sun could giv life to such a
monstrous big creature as it.

We have had occasion to sie severall tymes Madame Biton the tailleurs
daughter, that lives forgainst Mr. Daillés, with whom Madame Daillé telles
me Mr. Hope was great. Truly a gallant, personable woman to be of such mean
extract and of parents wheirof the father is a wery unshappen man; the
mother neids yeeld nothing to Jenny Geddes.

I observing that ye sould never sy any of the religious orders be they
Jesuits or others on the streets but 2 of them togither, I enquired the
reason. First it was that the on might watch the other that so none may fly
from their convents, which they might easily do if they had the liberty of
going out alone. 2dly they do it to evite all scandall and suspicion. They
know the thoughts of the common peeple, that they be litle faworable to
them, the orders being talkt of as the lecherousest peeple that lives. To
exime their thoughts they go tuo and 2; for then if the one be so given he
his a restraint laying on him, to wit, another to sie his actions; but
usually they are both lounes.[111]

    [111] Knaves.

They have a way of conserving great lumps of ice all the summer over heir
in low caves: and these to keip their wines cold and fresh from heating
when they bring it to their chamber.

To recknon over all the crys of Poictiers (since they are divers according
to the diverse seasons of the year) would be difficult. Yet theirs one I
cannot forgeet, a poor fellow that goes thorow the toune wt a barrell of
wine on his back; in his on hand a glass full halfe wt win; in his other a
pint stoop; over his arm hinges a servit; and thus marched he crieng his
delicate wine for 5 souse the pot thats our pint; or 4 souse or cheaper it
may be. He lets any man taste it that desires, giving them their loof full.

I did sy one fellow right angry on a tyme: their came about 7 or 8 about
one, every one to taste; giving every one of them some, to neir a
chopin[112] not one of them bought from him; wheiron he sayd he sould sie
better marchands before he gave to so many the nixt tyme.

    [112] Half a pint old French, and also old Scots, measure, was equal to
        about three times the present imperial measure.

Wood also is a passable commodity heir as in all France, wheir they burn no
thing but wood, which seimes indeed to be wholsomer for dressing of meat
then coall. Every fryday and saturday the peasants brings in multitude of
chariots charged wt wood, some of them drawen wt oxen, mo. wt mules,
without whilk I think France could not subsist they are so steadable to
them. For a chariot weill ladened theyle get 6 or 7 livres, which I
remember Mr. Daillé payed.

They have another use for wood in that country also which we know not: they
make sabots of them, which the peasants serve themselfes wt instead of
shoes; in some account they are better then shoes. They wil not draw nor
take in water as shoes whiles do, they being made of one intier lump of
wood and that whiles meikle enough. Their disadvantage is this none can run
wt them, they being loose and not fastened to our feet, yet some weill used
wt them can also run in them. They buy them for wery litle money.

These also that cannot aspire to ordinar hats (for since we left Berwick we
saw no bonnets as also no plaids) they have straw hats, one of which theyle
buy for 6 souse, and get 3 or 4 moneths wearing out of it.

The weather in France heir is large as inconstant as in Scotland, scarcely
a week goes over wtout considerable raines.

I cannot forgett the conditions that Madame Daillé in sport offered me if I
would wait till hir daughter ware ready, and then take hir to wife, that I
sould pay no pension all the tyme I stayed in their house waiting on hir.

On the 15 of August (being wt the Scots the 5 and observed by them in
remembrance of Gourie conspiracie) came about to be observed _feste de
Nostre Dame_, who hath 4 or 5 fests in the year, as the annuntiation, the
conception, hir purification; and this was hir death and assumption day.

I went and heard the Jesuits preach, a very learned fellow, but turbulent,
spurred and hotbrained; affecting strange gestures in his delivery mor
beseiming a Comoedian then a pulpit man. Truly ever since in seing the
Comoedians act I think I sy him. He having signed himselfe, using the words
_In nomine patris, filij_, etc., and parfaited all the other ceremonies we
mentioned already, he began to preach. The text was out of some part of
Esay, thus, _Et sepulcrum ipsius erat gloriosum_. He branched out his
following discourse unto 2:--1. the Virgines Death; 2. hir assumption. As
to hir death he sayd she neided not have undergoon it but give she liked,
since death is the wages of sin, _mais Nostre Dame estoit affranchie de
toutes sorte de peché, soit originell, soit actuell_. In hir death he fand
3 priviledges she had above all others: first she died most voluntarly,
villingly, and gladly; when to the most of men Death's a king of terrors.
2ndly, she died of no sickness, frie of all pain, languor or angoisse.
3dly, hir body after death was not capable of corruption, since its absurd
to think that that holy body, which carried the Lord of Glory 9 moneths,
layes under the laws of corruption. For thir privelegdes he cited Jean
Damascen and their pope Victor. But it was no wonder she putrified no, for
she was not 3 dayes in the grave (as he related to us) when she was assumed
in great pomp, soul and body, unto heaven, Christ meiting hir at heavens
port and welcoming hir.

He spoke much to establish monstrous merite; laying doune for a principle
that she had not only merited heaven, and indeed the first place their,
being the princess of heaven; but also had supererogated by hir work for
others to make them merit, which works the church had in its treasury to
sell at mister.[113] He made heaven also _a vendre_ (as it is indeed amongs
them), but taking himselfe and finding the expression beastly and
mercenarie he began to speir, but whow is it to sell, is it not for your
_bonnes oeuures_, your penances, repentance, etc. This was part of his
sermon.

    [113] Mister, need.

That Strachan that was regent at Aberdeen and turned papist, I was informed
that he was in a society of Jesuits at Naples.

This order ever since it was a order hath bein one of the most pestilent
orders that ever was erected, being ever a republick in a republick wheir
ever they be; which caused Wenice throw them out of hir, and maugre the
pope who armed Spaine against hir for it holds them out unto this day. They
contemne and disdain all the rest of the orders in comparation of
themselfes; they being indeed that great nerve and sinew that holds all the
popes asustataes[114] togither; whence they get nothing but hatred again
from the other religious, who could wt ease generally sy them all hanged,
especially the Peres de l'Oratoire, who are usually all Jansenists, so that
ye sall seldome find these 2 orders setled in one city, tho they be at
Orleans. The Jesuits be the subtilist folk that breathes, which especially
appears when under the praetext of visitting they fly to a sick carkcass,
especially if it be fat, as ravens does to their prey. Their insteed of
confirming and strenthening the poor folk to dy wt the greater alacrity,
they besett them wt all the subtile mines imaginable to wring and suck
money from them, telling them that they most leive a dozen or 2 of serviets
to the poor Cordeliers; as many spoones to the godly Capuchines who are
busie praying for your soul, and so something to all the rest; but to us to
whom ye are so much beholden a goodly portion, which they repeit wery oft
over; but all this tends as one the one hand to demonstrate their
inexplebible greediness, so one the other to distraict the poor miser wt
thoughts of this world and praejudice or defraudation of his air.

    [114] Apparently from [Greek: asustatos], meaning 'ill-compacted
        forces or elements.'

Some things are very cheap their. We have bought a quarter a 100 of delicat
peirs for a souse, which makes just a groat the hunder. Madame Daillé also
bought very fat geese whiles for 18 souse, whiles 12, whiles 15, whiles for
20; which generally they blood their, reserving it very carefully and makes
a kind of pottages wt it and bread which seimes to them very delicious but
not so to me, tho' not out of the principle that the Apostles, Actes 15,
discharged the gentils to eat blood or things strangled. That which they
call their pottage differ exceidingly from ours, wt which they serve
themselfes instead of our pottage, as also our broth, neither of which they
know. It seems to diffir little from our soups when we make them wt loaves.
Surely I fand it sensibly to be nourishing meat; and it could not be
otherwise, since it consisted of the substance first of the bread, which
wtout doute is wholsomer then ours, since they know not what barme is
their, or at least they know not what use we make of it, to make our bread
firme, yet their bread is as firme wtout it: next the substance of the
flech, which usually they put in of 3 sorts, of lard of mouton, of beef, of
each a little morsell; 3dly of herbes for seasoning, whiles keel, whiles
cocombaes, whiles leeks, whiles minte or others. In my experience I fand it
very loosing, for before I was weill accoustened wt it, if I chanced to sup
any tyme any quantity of the pottage, I was sure of 2 or 3 stools afternoon
wt it.

The French air after the sun setting I learned in my oune experience to be
much more dangerous then ours in Scotland, for being much more thinner and
purer, its consequently more peircing; for even in August their, which is
the hotest and warmest moneth, if at night efter 8 a cloak I had sitten
doune in my linnens and 2 shirtes to read but halfe a hower or a hower
(which I have done in Scotland the mides of vinter and not have gotten
cold) after the day I was sure to feell I had gotten cold; and that by its
ordinary symptomes a peine and throwing in my belly, & 4 or 5 stools; I
played this to my selfe tuize or I observed; ever after if I had liked to
give my selfe physick I had no more ado but to let my selfe get cold.

They let their children suck long heir, usually 2 years; if weak 2 years
and a halfe. Madame Daillé daughter suckt but 6 quatres, they think much to
give 40 or 50 livres to nourses for fostering. Madame Daillé gave 15
crounes in cash and some old cloaths and sick things as they to hir that
nursed her daughter, a peasants wife whom I saw. The gossips and
commers[115] heir give nothing as they do in Scotland, save it may be a
gift to the child.

    [115] Godmothers, _commères_.

I have called my selfe to mind of a most curious portrait that we saw in
Richeliew castle, the description wheirof by reason its so marvelously
weill done sall not be amiss tho it comes in heir _postliminio_ to insert.
On the walls theirfor of one of the chambers we saw is drawen at large the
emblem of the deluge or universall floud, in one corner of it I discovered
men wt a great deall of art swiming (for the world is drawen all over
covered wt waters, the catarracts of the heavens are represented open, the
water deschending _guttatim_ so lively that til a man recall himselfe and
wiew it narrowly hel make a scrupule to approach the broad[116] for fear of
being wett), and that wt a bensill[117] their course being directed to a
mountain which they sy at a distance; which is also drawen. Painters skill
heir hes bein such, that a man would almost fancy he hears the dine the
water makes wt their strugling and striking both hands and feet to gaine
that mountaine. Just besydes thies are laying dead folke wt their armes
negligently stretched out, the furious wawes tossing them terribly, as a
man would think, some of them laying on their back, some of them on their
belly, some wheirof nothing is to be sein but their head and their arme
raxed up above their head. Amongs those that are laying wt their face up
may be observed great diversity of countenances, some wt their mouth wide
open and their tongue hinging out, some glooring,[118] some girning,[119]
some who had bein fierce and cruell during their life, leiving legible
characters in their horrible and barbarous countenances. In another part of
the broad is to be sein all sorts of creatures confusedly thorow other,
notwtstanding of that naturell antipathy that is betuixt some of them, as
the sheip and the wolf, the crocodile and Lizard, etc.; ther may we sy the
wawes peele mel swallowing up wolfes and sheip, Lions and buls, and other
sorts of beasts. Remove your eyes to another corner, and their yeel sy
great tries torn up by the roots, and tost heir and their by the waves;
also hie strong wales falling; also rich moveables, as brave cloaths and
others, whiles above and whiles beneath; and go a litle wy farder yeel sie
brave tower which at every puft of wind give a rock, the water busily
undermining its foundation. A little way from that ye have to admiration,
yea, to the moving of pity, draweu women wt their hair all hinging
disorderly about their face, wt their barnes in their armes, many a
mint[120] to get a clift of a craig to save themselfes and the child to,
some of them looking wt frighted countenances to sy give the waves be
drawing neir them. In a nother ye have a man making a great deall of work
to win out, hees drawen hinging by the great tronc of a try. At his back is
drawen another that claps him desperatly hard and fast by the foot, that if
he win out he may be drawen out wt him. Its wonderfull to sy whow weill the
sundry passions of thir 2, the anger of him who hes a grip of the trunck,
and the trembling fear of him who hes his neighbour by the foot are
expressed; and what strugling they make both, the one to shake the other
loose of his gripes, the other to hold sicker, and this all done so weill
that it occasions in the spectateurs as much greife in beholding it as they
seim to have who are painted. Finaly, the painter hath not forgot to draw
the ark it selfe floting on the waters.

    [116] Panel.

    [117] Strenuous effort.

    [118] Staring.

    [119] Grinning (like a child crying).

    [120] Mint, attempt.

On a night falling in discours wt some 2 or 3 Frenchmen of Magick and
things of that nature, I perceaved it was a thing wery frequent in France,
tho' yet more frequent in Italy. They told me seweral stories of some that
practized sorcery, for the most part preists who are strangely given to
this curiosity. They told of one who lived at Chateleraut, who, when he
pleased to recreat himselfe, would sit doune and sett his charmes a work,
he made severalls, both men and women, go mother naked thorow the toune,
some chanting and singing, others at every gutter they came to taking up
the goupings[121] of filth and besmeiring themselfes wt it. He hath made
some also leip on horseback wt their face to the horse taill, and take it
in their teeth, and in this posture ride thorow all the toune.

    [121] Handfuls.

Ware their not a Comoedian at Orleans who used to bring us billets when
their ware any Comoedies to be acted, who offered for a croune to let us sy
what my father and mother was doing at that instant, and that in a glasse,
I made my selfe as wery angry at him, telling him that I desired not to
know it by such means. On that he gott up the laughter, demanding if I
thought he had it be ill means; for his oune part he sayd he never saw the
Dewill.

Not only is it usuall heir to show what folkes are doing tho ther be 1000
miles distant; but their[122] also that will bring any man or woman to ye
if ye like, let them be in the popes Conclave at Rome; but incontrovertably
its the Devill himselfe that appeires in this case. The tricks also of
robbing the bride groomes of their faculty that they can do nothing to the
wives is very ordinar heir; as also that of bewitching gentlewomen in
causing them follow them lasciviously and wt sundry indecent gestures; and
this they effectuat sometymes by a kind of pouder they have and mix in
amongs hir wine; some tymes by getting a litle of hir hair, which they
boill wt pestiferous herbs; whilk act when its parfaited the women who
aught the hair will come strangely, let hir be the modestest woman in
Europe, wheir the thing is doing, and do any thing the persones likes.

    [122] their = there are.

Plumes are in wery great abondance heir, and that of many sorts. We have
bein offered the quatrain, thats 26 of plumes, wery like that we call the
whitecorne, tho' not so big, for 2 deniers or a double, thats for 8 penies
the 100; and they sel them cheaper.

Great is the diversity amongs peirs their. Mr. Daillé hath told me that at
least theirs 700 several sorts of peirs that grows in France, al
distinguasble be the tast. We ourselfes have sien great diversity. Theirs a
wery delicious sort of poir they call the _poir de Rosette_, because in
eating it ye seime as give ye ware smelling a rose. They have also among
the best of the peirs _poir de Monsieur_, and _de Madame_. They have the
_poir de piss_, the _poir blanchette_ (which comes wery neir our safron
peer we have at home), and _trompe valet_, a excelent peir, so called
because to look to ye would not think it worth anything, whence the valets
or servants, who comes to seik good peirs to their masters, unless they be
all the better versed, will not readily buy it, whence it cheats them. They
distinguise their peires into _poirs de l'esté de l'automne_, and _de
l'yver_, amongs whilk theirs some thats not eatable til pais or pasque.

In the gazetts or news books (which every friday we get from the
Fullions[123] or Bernardines at their Convent, such correspondence does the
orders of the country keip wt thess at Paris), we heard newes passing at
home. The place they bring it from they terme it Barwick, on the borders of
Scotland. We heard that the 29 of May, our Soverains birth day, was solemly
keipt by the Magistrates of Edinburgh and the wholle toune. At another tyme
we heard of a act of our privy counsill, inhibiting all trafic whatsoever
wt any of the places infected wt the plague. In another we heard of a
breach some pirates made in on our Northren Iles, setting some houses on
fire; on whilk our privy counsell by a act layd on a taxation on the
kingdome, to be employed in the war against the Hollanders, ordaining it to
be lifted wtin the 5 years coming.

    [123] Fullions, Feuillants, 'Nom de religieux réformés de l'ordre de
        Citeaux, appelés en France feuillants, et en Italie réformés de
        St. Bernard... Etym., Notre-Dame de Feuillans, devenue en 1573 le
        chef de la congrégation de la plus étroite observation de Citeaux
        ... en Latin, Beata Maria fuliensis, fulium dicta a nemore
        cognomine, aujourd'hui Bastide des Feuillants, Haute Garonne.'--
        Littré, _Dict_. s.v.

Tho the French are knowen and celebrated throwghout the world for the
civility, especially to strangers, yet I thought wonderfull to perceive the
inbreed antipathy they carry against the Spaniard. That I have heard it
many a tyme, not only from Mr. Daillé, but from persons of more refined
judgements then his, yea even from religious persones, that they had not no
civility for a Spaniard, that not one of a 1000 of them is welcoome. I
pressing whence this might come to passe that they so courteously receaving
all sortes of strangers, be they Scots, English, Germans, Hollanders, or
Italians, and that they had none of this courtoisie to spare for a
Spaniard, they replied that it came to pass from the contrariety of their
humeurs; that the French ware franck (whence they would derive the name of
their nation), galliard, pleasant, and pliable to all company; the Spaniard
quite contrary retired, austere, rigid, proud. And indeed their are
something of truth in it; for who knows not the pride of the Castilian: if
a Castilian then a Demigod. He thinks himselfe _ex meliore lut

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