Lord John Lauder Fountainhall

“ 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. ”

“ Even those who were most in sympathy with the English Commonwealth politically shrank for a while, and they tried whether the Long Parliament might not accept a kind of compromise, whether Scotland might not be erected into a little independent Republic allied to the English Commonwealth or Republic. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On man hes a great musket shot just in his breast, yet he did not dy of it but afterwards was hanged; a mans skin tanned sewed on straw, seimes like a naked man; the taille of an Indian cow, its white, wery long, at least in a dozen of sundry peices; the skines of some hideous serpents and crocodils brought from America and Nilus; a mans scull with 4 litle hornes in its front, they ware within the skin while he was alive ”

“ The object of the Society is the discovery and printing, under selected editorship, of unpublished documents illustrative of the civil, religious, and social history of Scotland. The Society will also undertake, in exceptional cases, to issue translations of printed works of a similar nature, which have not hitherto been accessible in English. ”

“ As to that obiection, that hunting being from the right of natur, which is unchangable, it cannot be prohibited by any civil Law, I say hunting is not from the rights of nature commanding but permitting. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Its a custome in France that when a young woman unmarried is condemned to dy for some offence (unlesse the fault be al the grivevuser) that if the hangman be unmarried he may sick hir in marriage and get hir hir life that way: that their hes bein seweral that have refused it and choosen rather to die. This hes great resemblance wt that custome in England that a man being sentenced to dy, if a common whore demand him in marriage she wil get him; it being a charitable work to recal a whore from hir loose and prophan life by making hir marry. ”

“ The sone he brought in as the embleme of Justice ever minding his father of his bloody death and sufferings, to the effect that he take vengeance for it even on thess that crucifies him afresh. The mother he brought on the stage as the embleme of mercy, crying imperiously, jure matris, I inhibite your justice, I explode your rigor, I discharge your severity. Let mercy alone triumph. Surely if this be not blasphemy I know not whats blasphemie. To make Christ only Justice fights diamettrally [129] wt the Aposle John, If any man hath sinned he has a Advocat with the father. ”

“ A camel or Dromedary would be as much gazed on in France for strangers as they would be in Scotland. In Italy they have some, but few, for they are properly Asiatick wares, doing as much service to the Persian, Arabian and others Oriental nations acknowledging the great Tartar chain as the silly, dul asse and the strong, robust mule does to the French. The camel, according to report indeniable, because a tall, hy beast it most couch and lay doune on its forward feet to receave its burden, which if it find to heavy it wil not stir til they ease it of some of it ”

“ At Paris they are 5 pence a peice, at Poictiers a shiling a dozen. They fry their egges differently from us: they break them first in a plate: in the meantym they fry a considerable lump of butter, then pours in the egges salting and spicing them. Their hens are not so fertile as ours.
Our speaking of egges mindes me of Christophorus Colomba Lusitanian, a experienced skiper, first discowrer of the new world, tho he had gotten some encouradgements and conclusions about it from on Vespucius Americus Florentin, from whom it gets its denomination of America. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Il ne faut pas lire beaucoup, c'est a dire, il faut faire choiz des Auteurs et se les rendre familier. L'Histoire a bon droit est appelle le tesmoin des temps, le flambeau de la verité, la vie de la memoire, et la maistresse de la vie. ”

“ The parents also of the parties usually gives the new married folk gifts as rich plenishing, silver work, and sicklike.
In parties appealls heir from a inferior to a superior, if it appear that they ware justly condemned, and that they have wrongously and rashly appealed, they condeime them unto a fine called heir Amende, which the Judge temperes according to the ability of the persones and nature of the businesse: the fine its converted ether to the use of the poor or the repairing of the palais. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To think on the other hand that he sould have died is as absurd, since its confessed that the trie of Life was given him as a sacrament and signe he sould not lay under the strock of death, for as death comes from that contrariety and discord of the elements of whilk our bodies are composed, so the fruit of this trie, at least typicaly, had the wertue of maintaining the contrary elements in a parfait concord and by consequence of vindicating a man from Death. ”

“ When a person dies in France they are very careful to mark in what posture after their death their feet are in; for if they be unæqually laying, on of them drawen up, they strongly beleive that by that the dead calls his or hir neirest friend let it be wife, father, or brother, on of which wil dy shortly after.
Its the faschion of the grandees when they die that they are exposed for 3 days after in a chamber hung all in doole [334] in their bed, also of dool, in the bests cloaths which they wor when they ware in life, so that al may come to sy them in that space. ”

“ There comes no vine out of France to forreine country, save that which they brimstone a litle, other wise it could not keip on the sea, but it would spoil. Its true the wine works much of it out againe, yet this makes that wine much more unwholsome and heady then that we drink in the country wheir it growes at hand. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Jesuites whipes their scollers wery cruelly, yea they whipt on to death at Poictiers: yet the father could obtaine nothing against them. The greatest affront that can be done to a woman is to cut the tayle of hir goune from hir, or even to cast ink in her face, since that a lovely face is the principal thing that commends a woman, hence as the greatest reproach a man can be upraided wt is bougre or j'en foute; so the greatest of their railings against a woman is to say, vous avez eu la robe coupé au queue. It hath bein practicat on some. ”

“ The lawes of France wil hardly permit the father to disinherit his sone, unless he can prove him guilty of some hy ingratitude and disobedience against him, or that he hath attempted something against the life of his father; that he is debaucht he cannot.
The custome among the great ones of the most part of the world is that they cause any other of quality that comes to sy them be conveyed thorow their stables to sy their horses, as also causeth them sy their doges, their haucks, ther gardens. ”