These were his Words as near as I can remember, and his Advice being applauded by all the Auditors, another Rundlet of Aqua Vitæ is fetc’d; but by that time it was near out, a fresh Quarrel arose, wherein a second Person was murder’d; which being likewise smother’d and a fresh Rundlet of Aqua Vitæ procur’d, I took my leave of these kind Heats, for fear they should at last raise a drunken Collation out of me. So I made the best of my way for Foxford, a very large Town, with a Church in it, lying among very high Hills. Hence I went to Lorras, an excellent Harbour for Ships, situated in a Bay, twining among exceeding high Mountains. Thence I went to Sligo, which hath a strong Citadel, by a Bridge containing Eight Stone Arches. Hence I went to Grange; from thence to Balishannon, a Seaport Town; hence I went to Donnegal, a Town situated on a Hill, and was burnt by the Duke of Berwick, in the late Irish Wars. Hence I went over Barnsmoor, a Mount Ten Miles in Length, in the Province of Ulster; but about a Mile before I came to the End of it, Colcrockeda [or the Hangman’s] Wood begins; where a great many Tories or Rapparees have been hang’d, when they made their solitary Receptacles in this desolate and dangerous Place for robbing. Hence I went to Rapho, a Bishoprick, with a very little Church in it. And next I went to London-Derry, the People whereof have such good Stomachs as to eat Cats, Rats, Dogs and Horse-flesh in time of a Siege. The most remarkable Thing I saw hereabout was the Gallows, which stands about half a Mile out of Town, and is of a Triangular Form, like our Triple-Tree at Hyde-Park Corner; but as yet has not honour’d the Roman See with so many Saints and Martyrs as that in England.

From London-Derry I went to Colrain, a Seaport Town divided by the Byrne Water into Two Parts, so that it stands in the Counties of Derry and Antrim, which last Shire is much haunted with Fairies, who are so mischievous as to fling Darts at People as they Travel in the Night. I saw one of ’em, which is a flat solid Stone, about Two Inches long, and in Shape like a Vamp or upper Leather of a Woman’s pecked Toe Shoe; one side white, t’other inclining to the same Colour, but speckled with red Spots; and is reckon’d very medicinal, if us’d according to Prescription, for the sore Teats of Cows. The Irish People, I perceiv’d all the Way I Travell’d, are haughty of Heart, implacable in Enmity; light of Belief, and patient per Force in Hunger and Cold. Damage-fesant is seldom committed, because here are few or no Hedges; nor can Forrest Laws be in much Use, when I saw not one from one End of the Kingdom to the other. Brogues are more worn than Shoes by both Sexes; their Mouths supply the Use of Bellows; a Pail of Water serves ’em for a Looking-Glass; and Cleanliness is as much unknown to them, as the Discoveries of Christopher Columbus to the Antients. The richer Sort of Women wear blue Cloth Cloaks, in all Weathers, as a Type or Symbol of their Desire of wearing the Breeches too; but their Husbands to mar their Intentions, generally wear Trowsers made of Frize, which is the staple Commodity of the Country. The midling Rank of Women wear Riding-Hoods; and the Poor ones clad themselves with course Mantles, thrown over their Kerchiefs, which are as black as their Bodies, and their Bodies as black as their Souls, but yet their Souls are blacker than either; if it was but for their Malice, contrary to the 11th Commandment, commanding, That ye love one another.

Tho’ the Women differ in their Habits, yet both Gentle and Simple count Decency in Dressing meer Idolatry; and that their Stockings may hang flatteringly about their Heels, they have utterly forsworn the Use of Garters. Those who are married are generally dull and sottish, so that when their Husbands come home, they look like so many Passion-Pictures, presenting ever Sadness and Melancholly; which makes the poor Cuckolds like Spaniards, who will leave their Saviour at any Time for a Maidenhead, look as dull. Yea, an Irishman loves a Whore as well as a Frenchman; and tho’ the Superstition of former Times accounted a Woman of such Pollution, that the Council of Eliberis would not suffer a Man to touch her three Days before his receiving the Sacrament, yet in Defiance of all Councils, they will forsake Sacraments, and all things else holy, rather than go without a Bit of old Hat: And this Practice of abstaining from Women at certain Times, was (I suppose) in Use among the antient Heathens, according to this Caution of Tibullus.

By this Question in the last Chapter of Proverbs, as I take it, Who can find a virtuous Woman? One would be apt to surmise that Solomon had travell’d into this Country; and to see the People eat Clover Grass, a Man might swear ’em all a-kin to grazing Nebuchadnezzar. The Genius of the Irish is not a-whit admirable, for one Age here grows not wiser than another, like other Nations; which gives great Suspicion of a Metempsischosis, or Pythagoras’s Transmigration of the Soul to be true: Seeing, by the Conversation I had among the Bogtrotters, that the younger Folks only inherit the small Sense of their Progenitors; whose profound Knowledge was heretofore so great, as to tye Ploughs to their Horses Tails. Their Bogs are many, whence they have all their Fuel, for they burn nothing but Turf; Spiders are very plentiful, but not venomous; and the common Texture spun out of their Intrails, makes a Sort of Hangings, which the Irish for Cheapness prefer much before good Tapestry. In some Parts they make their Bread with the Bark of Holly, from which tearing off the green Superfluities, they work it up round like a Football, and bake it in the Embers. Their Butter being mixt with Salt and Garlick, and put into the Skin which follows the Calf from the Cow, they bury in a Turf-Pit for 8 or 9 Months together, which does not only make it of a strong Taste, but likewise dies it with all the Colours in the Rainbow: And Briskins, or the Roots of wild Tansie, they love as well. Tho’ the Streets in every Town are very dirty, yet their Scavengers Carts are no bigger than Wheelbarrows; and the Use of Clogs or Pattins is an Abomination with most Women. The most epidemical Distemper among Strangers is the bloody Flux; for which, Eggs fry’d in Brandy is a good Catholicon. Few or no Patients happen among the lying-in Women; for (like the Hebrews, as their pious Midwives pretended) they are brought to Bed without any Help; wash and do all without Nurses; and in less than half a Week do not only go abroad, but also give Earnest for being with Child again. Their newborn Infants are as hardy, and will endure Cold as well as any Laplander; or the strongest Bear subject to the Czar of Muscovy. The Irish Soil mimicks Nature like the vivifying Mud of Nile; for I have seen the Hairs which fall from Horses Tails into Puddles of Water on the Road, transubstantiated (if I may be so bold as to use that Word, without any Offence to his Unholiness the Pope) into Worms; wherefore it is no Wonder that Priests, by the Art of Legerdemain, can convert good Bread and Wine into real Flesh and Blood.

Jack-Daws here are not black, but white and grey, like Royston Crows; and Sea-Gulls are all white, except their Wings, which are tipt at the End with a dark yellow; but the largest Birds in this Kingdom are Whores-Birds and Jay!-Birds. Here is a sort of Vermin breeding near Bogs call’d Man-creepers; in Shape and Bigness like a Lizard, having 4 Legs, the two foremost of which bear the Resemblance of a Human Hand. This Creature’s Property is to creep into a Man’s Belly, if he finds him sleeping with his Mouth open, where he extreamly tortures him, ’till fetch’d out of his internal Habitation; which Operation is thus perform’d. The Patient being kept fasting, his Chyrurgeon baits a Hook with a Piece of Meat, and puts it down his Throat, at which the hungry Insect snapping, he pulls him out with a sudden Jerk, and kills it. Milk will not keep (do what they can) from turning sour in six Hours at any time of the Year; but why this Region can’t preserve this Sweetness longer, is somewhat paradoxical to me; unless the invisible Effluvia’s, which secretly dissipate themselves from the unwholsome Fogs, arising out of the Bogs, by the attractive Power of the Sun’s Beams, assume the Prerogative of forcing the Putrefaction, so common to the liquid Product of the Cow’s Teat. An Ignis fatuus the silly People deem to be a Soul broke out of Purgatory; and on the Vigil of St. John the Baptist’s Nativity they make Bonfires, and run along the Streets and Fields with Wisps of Straw blazing on long Poles to purify the Air, which they think infectious, by believing all the Devils, Spirits, Ghosts, and Hobgoblins fly abroad this Night to hurt Mankind. Farthermore, it is their dull Theology to affirm, the Souls of all People leave their Bodies on the Eve of this Feast, and take a Ramble to that very Place where, by Land or Sea, a final Seperation shall divorce them for evermore in this World. As soon as Death brings his last Summons to any one, the wild Irish (both Men, Women and Children) go before the Corpse, and from his or her House to the Church-yard set up a most hideous Holoo loo loo, which may be heard two or three Miles round the Country. Now when a Virgin (if here’s any such Thing after she’s in the Teens) dies, a Garland, made of all sorts of Flowers and sweet Herbs, is carried by a young Woman on her Head, before the Coffin, from which hang down two black Ribbons, signifying our mortal State; and two white, as an Emblem of Purity and Innocence; the Ends thereof are held by 4 young Maids, which are not so plenty here as Thornbacks, before whom a Basket full of Herbs and Flowers is supported by 2 other Maids, who strew them along the Streets to the Place of Burial: Then after the Deceased follow all her Relations, and Acquaintance. But the Priest being asham’d to walk without his Pontificalibus, he’s as invisible, ’till you come to the Grave, as if he had the Ring of Gyges on his Finger.

Peas, Beans, and Artichoaks are very scarce; but what is worse, their Beef will not take Salt, without all the Fat melting away. The Inhabitants in general thinking Adultery and Fornication more laudable, than drawing the Picture of Posterity in the lawful State of Matrimony, the Morbus gallicus is as fashionable all over the Country, as in any Court in Europe; nevertheless, it is no Miracle to see them look fair to the last, since they drink nothing but what Nature’s Liberality is pleas’d to bestow on ’em at Springs. Children that are troubled with Kibes are always in a sad Condition, because their poor Parents being great Strangers to any sort of salted Meat, they have no Brine to Cure them. When they use Phlebotomy they frequently bleed ill Blood, because it always runs in their Veins; and an Apoplexy seldom kills them, because they are not much pamper’d with high Feeding. A Dropsie does not much hurt an Irishman, by reason he naturally swells with his Rhodomontado’s, and bragging Lies: But a deep Consumption always affects most their Pockets. Tho’ all their Actions are evil, yet are they not much afflicted with the King’s-Evil; nor are they much troubled with the Gout, because their Poverty does not qualifie them for it. I can’t tell what an Imposthume may do, but a Lie will never choak them; nor do they seem to have the Palsie, but when a bad Conscience makes ’em quake and tremble like an Aspin Leaf: But indeed the People are all most grievously infected with the Scurvy and Spleen too. As for their Houses, the Rooms up one pair of Stairs, or higher, are cover’d with Earth 4 or 5 Inches thick; and the Tenent of the Joyces are not put into Mortises, but laid cross-wise into Notches over the Summet. An Irishman and Fool are Correlatives; or at least synonimous Terms: And catch him without a Blunder, which makes him love Bulls, ’tis to be fear’d the World is near its Dissolution. They speak largely of their Antiquity, boasting as if they were a People before the Creation; but, in my Opinion, Ireland could not well be in esse so early, because e’er a powerful Fiat produc’d all Things out of nothing, all Things lay in their original Chaos, so I can’t imagine of what the Irish could exist, unless they derive their Descent from those Atoms, which by a casual Concourse (as the Epicureans hold) jumping together, gave Being to the World. Neither could it be a Country at the first Dawn of Light, by reason when Omnipotency had finisht his stupendious Works, he said, they were good; and the sacred Approbation was glorified by all the Sons of the Morning, who shouted together for Joy. Truly, I should rather impute the Original of this Country to some Judgment, which stirring up the Ocean, to overwhelm some remoter Part of the Globe, whose aggravating Sins too much incensed divine Justice, it left its antient Current, to make room for a Place as wicked: for you may read in divers Authors of a Resurrection of Isles, peeping up in many Parts, where none were ever seen before.

Their Language they do not only reckon older, but also more copious than the Hebrew; however, the Copiousness of their Linguo is easily guess’d at, by not having a Word in their Speech to express Breeches; and many other appellative Words. Like the odious French they put the Substantive before the Adjective, and to embellish their Discourse, too often mixt with Tautology, they frequently use the Figure Hysteron & Proteron, that is, putting the Cart before the Horse. Their Alphabet contains but these 17 Letters, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, I, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U; but this literal Paucity (like the Saxon Abecedary) is supply’d with some Abbreviations or Contractions. The Pronunciation of their Tongue being somewhat guttural, it is hard for the Vulgar to speak it; harder to speak it significantly; and hardest to write true. In the late King James’s Reign an Irish Teaguish Priest mightily extolling this Bogland Jargon, he as mightily interceeded with his papistick Majesty to erect publick Schools in Oxford and Cambridge, for professing this Tongue; but an Irish Courtier, who had no great Veneration for this conceited Pedlar in holy Trinkets, requesting the King to command him to translate, Black Ox eat raw Egg, the Priest presently perform’d his Talk thus, Daue dooue ecye ewe ouce; at which inarticulate Sounds (for if you was to hear them rightly pronounc’d, they sound just like a Dog’s barking) his Majesty bursted out a laughing, and calling to his Dog Towser, said, Here’s my Dog can speak your Language already; whereupon the spiritual Jugler drew in his Horns, and sneak’d off like a small Cur that had lost his Tail. In their Discourse it is common for them to use two Negatives, which I’m sure make an Affirmative; unless, after the manner of the Greeks, they use them to make the Negation stronger. It has been a great Dispute among Grammarians, whether an Irishman is a Noun Substantive, or a Noun Adjective; but it is carried in the latter, by reason he cannot stand by himself in Battle; for before the Irish go abroad, you shall not find greater Cowards under the Copes of Heaven.

Why the Men and Women here should be so unmercifully big in the Legs, above any other People, I impute to their mean Food, making no solid Chyle; so what slender Diet they eat, descending into their lower Parts, it there settles in a dropsical sort of a Humour. For all this Climate is reckon’d wholesome, it is rare to see any of the Natives past the climacterical Year; and their Perfidiousness is commonly attended with more Curses, in one respect or another, than are read in the Commination by our Clergy on Ash Wednesday. Such as have Pewter take great Delight to have it furbelow’d with Dust; and to wear clean Linnen they reckon as great a Crime as Loyalty. The People (like Janus) have not two Faces; but that they are double-hearted is confirm’d by the Votes of all moral Men: For thinking a sly deceiving their best Friends meritorious, is a general Rule they hold without any Exception. Here few Women die Martyrs for Love; but if they crave the Affections of a Man, wholly averse to their Inclination, their Endeavour to raise Enjoyment of him is by Art; and to this end they often use Philtres. Likewise, the Spark that’s resolv’d to sacrifice his Youth and Vigour on a Damsel, whose Coyness will not accept of his Love-Oblations; he threads a Needle with the Hair of her Head, and then running it thro’ the most fleshy Part of a dead Man, as the Brawn of the Arms, Thigh, or Calf of the Leg, the Charm has that Virtue in it, as to make her run mad for him whom she so lately slighted. Providence is very admirable in all its Dispensations, of strangely bringing surprising Accidents to pass; but more especially in Ireland, is her Gubernation of Chances wonderful, in preserving a People from starving, whose short Commons, in most Places, make a lively Representation of Famine. Their Skill in painting comes not near the rude Draughts of the boorish Dutch; whose Fancy is more grotesque than natural: And their Churches discover neither any Workmanship after the old Gothick Fashion; nor shew the Dorick, Corinthian, or other Orders of modern Architecture. Also the Spaciousness of them may be soon guess’d at by their Cathedrals, the largest of which scarce exceeds Oliver’s Tabernacle, or Calamy’s Presbyterian Meeting-House in Long Ditch at Westminster.

This Country abounds with Foxes, and some wild Deer; Curlues and Cuckolds; and many Rooms in most Houses having no Chimnies, one would take every Town to be a Vent of Mount Ætna, when the Smoak (which is enough to stifle Charon) makes the Walls as black as Hell: And because Sarah was buried in the Field of Macpelah, some of the Irish have the Ambition to be buried in open Places. The People are so alike for Rags and Jags, that I believe Plautus took his Amphitryo from them.

From Colrain I went to Antrim, thence to Belfast, and thence to Donaghadea, where you may dine at 12 at Noon, and by Water get to Port Patrick in Scotland, by 3 in the Afternoon. It being natural for the Irishmen to be as Jealous as Spaniards, from whom they pretend to be descended, they will not let their Wives wear Smocks, to prevent their Neighbours from taking up their Linnen; and if a Man has a great Estate here, he cannot with the Psalmist say, My Liues are fallen to me in pleasant Places. The Hazel Wood in Ireland is obnoxious to Snakes, which expire in the Circles made with them; nor will a Toad, or any other venomous Creature, live in this Clime: But the Reason why the Soil is so blest, is because the People are curst.

THE
Comical Pilgrim’s Pilgrimage
INTO
HOLLAND.

Returning from Ireland to England again, and being still of a roving Mind, I was dispos’d to go to Holland, I think it was on the longest Day in the Year, call’d Barnaby bright, when going down to Margate in the Isle of Thanet, where Austin the Monk landed to convert Kentish Infidels, I went on board the Swiftsure, a third Rate Man of War, on which Admiral Shovel had hoisted his Flag, in his convoying King William then over to Holland. A fair Wind favouring us, we soon arriv’d upon the Coast of Holland, which I perceiv’d was so low, that the People had the Advantage of other Nations, for if they die in Perdition, they have a shorter Cut to Hell than the rest of their Neighbours.

I landed at the Briel in the Isle of Voorne, where is good Accommodation enough for Travellers, but only they pay dear for it. Hence I cross’d over the Maes River to the Isle of Roosenburg, for 5 Stivers; and for 3 more I cross’d over for Vlaerding, and by that Time I got thither, I found the Ground so light all the way, that a strong Earthquake would shake the whole 17 Provinces of the Netherlands into a Chaos. Most of their Dwellings in this Town, as well as other Places, stand like Privies in moated Houses, hanging still over the Water; and had St. Stephen been condemn’d to suffer here, he might have been alive this Day; for unless it be their paved Cities, Gold is a little more plentiful than Stones; except it be living ones, and then for their Heaviness you may take in almost all the Nation. It is a singular Place to fat Monkies in, for there are Spiders as fat as Shrimps; and a starting Horse endangers you two Deaths at once, breaking your Neck and drowning. Holland hanging most in the Water, it seems but a Bridge of swimming Earth; and if Ætna be the Mouth or fore Gate of Hell, surely here is found the Postern, where the full Earth doth vent her crude black Gore, which the Inhabitants do scrape away for Fuel, as Men with Spoons do Excrements from Civit Cats. They dress their Meat in Aqua cælesti, for it springs not as ours from the Earth, but comes to them as Manna to the Israelites falling from Heaven. This they keep under Ground ’till it stinks, and then they pump it out again for Use; So when you wash your Face with one Hand, you had need hold your Nose with the other; for tho’ it be not a Cordial, yet is it certainly a strong Water; and an English Bailiff prefers it far beyond Mint Water. Their Ditches they distinguish into Nooks, as my Lord Mayor’s Cook does his Custards; and every Dutchman being his own Herald, Escutcheons are as plentiful among the Boors as Gentry is scarce.

From Vlaerding I went to Schiedam, a small Town abounding in Fishery; and where Abundance of Busses, Cord, and Network is made. Here entring a House, the first Thing (as in other Houses) I encounter’d was a Looking-Glass and next other Utensils of a Family, marshalled about the Room like so many Watch-men. Were the Knacks of all their Houses set together, they would far exceed the Trumpery of Deard’s Toyshop in Fleet-street, or the Court of Requests; and if you want to speak Dutch, you may learn a great deal from their Signs, for what they are they always write under them. Coaches and Carts are as rare as Comets; and all their Merchandize they draw through the Streets on Sledges, as we do our Traytors on Hurdles to Tyburn. Their Rooms being but as so many Sand-Boxes, you must either go out to spit, or blush when you see the Mop brought. As their Beds require a Ladder or Stairs to get into ’em, you are in Danger of breaking your Neck if you tumble out; and as they keep their Houses cleaner than their Bodies, so do they take Care to have their Bodies cleaner than their Souls. They are not so nice-conscioned, but that they can turn out Religion to let in Policy; and a Dutch Woman, being the Head of the Husband, she takes the Horn to her own Charge, which she often multiplies, and bestows the Increase on her Man. The People are generally boorish, therefore their Country is the God they Worship, War is their Heaven, Peace is their Hell, and the Spaniard, the Devil they hate.

From Schiedam I went to Rotterdam, the second great Emporium of this trading People, situated on the Side and Banks of the Maes, and fitted for all Conveniency of Transport and Importation. Here, as in other Places, I found I might sooner convert a Jew, than make a Dutchman yield to Arguments that cross him, because his Spirits are generated from English Beer; and his Body is built of pickled Herring, which makes him testy. If you see him fat, he hath been rooting in a Cabbage Ground, and that bladder’d him; he is as churlish as his Breeder Neptune; and the Love of Gain is as natural to him, as Water to a Goose, or Carrion to any Kite. Truth and Honesty is as scarce here as Hedges; they are seldom deceiv’d, because they trust no Body; and Complement is an Idleness they were never train’d in. They shall abuse a Stranger for nothing; and after a few base Terms scotch one another to a Carbanado. All that help them not, they hold popish; and take it for an Argument of much Honesty, to rail bitterly against the King of Spain. Every thing is so made to swim among them, that it is a Question if Elijah’s Ax were now floating there, whether it would be taken for a Miracle. The Shipping is the Babel which they boast on for the Glory of their Nation; and they are in a manner all Aquatiles, and therefore the Spaniards call them Water-Dogs. A Turkish Man of War is as dreadful to them as a Falcon to a Mallard, from whom their best Remedy is to steal away; and Sailors among ’em, are as common as Beggars with us, besides the Dutch Tarpaulins will drink, rail, swear, niggle, steal, and be lousie alike. Slime, humid Air, Water, and wet Diet, have so bagg’d their Cheeks, that some would take their Paunches to be gotten above their Chins; and bring under a democratical Government, tell them of a King in Jest, and they will cut your Throat in Earnest; for they hate the Name of Majesty more than a Jew doth Images, a Woman pure Virtue, or a Nonconformist a Surplice; and it is reported that there is but a Sheet of Paper betwixt Rotterdam and Hell, which is a nearer Way to old Nick than by Rochester.

From Rotterdam I went to Delf, where I observ’d that every Mynheer shall walk the Streets as Usurers go to Bawdy-Houses, all alone and melancholly; and their Apparel is civil enough, but very uncomely, as having usually more Stuff than Shape. Holland is the Fair of all Sects, where all the Pedlars of Heresies have Leave to vent their Toys, their Ribbands, and fanatick Rattles. They will admit of all Religions but the true one; and whosoever disturbs the civil Government shall be liable to Punishment, but the Decrees of Heaven and Sanctions of Deity, any one may break uncheck’d, by professing what false Religion he pleases. The Men are cladded tolerably well, unless he inclines to the Sea-Fashion; and then are his Breeches yawning at the Knees, as if they were about to swallow up his Legs. The Dutch Women have much more Forehead than Face; and they are starch’d so blue, that if they once grow old, you would verily believe you saw Winter walking up to the Neck in Indigo; They are far from going naked, for of a whole Woman you can see but half a Face; her Hand shews her to be a sore Labourer; and if you look lower, she’s like a Monkey chain’d about the Middle, and had rather want it in Diet, than not have Silver Hooks to hang her Keys in. Their Smocks are ever whiter than their Skin; and their Gowns are fit to hide great Bellies; but they make them shew so unhandsome, that Englishmen don’t care for getting them. Where the Women lies in, the Ringle or Knocker of the Door does Pennance, for it is lapped round about with Linnen, either to show you that loud Knocking may wake the Child, or else that for a Month her Ring is not to be run at. For their Diet they eat much and spend little; and when they send out a Fleet to the East-Indies, it shall live 3 Months on the Offals, which we fear would surfeit our Swine; yet they feed on’t, and are still the same Dutchmen. In their Houses, Roots and Stockfish are staple Commodities; and if they make a Feast, and add Flesh, they have an Art to keep it hot more Days, than a dirty, dingy, greasie Cook a Pig’s Head in Pye-Corner.

The Dutch Women are delivered, together with their Children, of a Sooterkin, not unlike to a Rat, which some imagine to be the Offspring of the Stoves they have betwixt their Legs in Winter. Their Fairs are more frequented on Sundays in the Afternoon, than their Churches in the Forenoon; and they are furnish’d with such a wonderful Plenty of Corn by their Neighbours; that they have not only enough for their own Use, but also to export sufficiently to other Countries, by selling them at an extravagant Price a Pig of their own Sow. There is no Nation in the World whose Seas yield the like constant and general Benefit as our Seas do; wherefore the Sloth of the English may very well be blam’d, for suffering the Dutch under their Noses, to rob them of that Wealth, which would be theirs at the small Rate of an easie Industry. But tho’ all the Commodities they have either domestick or foreign, their fishing in our Seas brings them in the greatest Profit, yet have they another Commodity which is very profitable to them, and that is War; for whereas other Nations are undone by it, they have the Secret to thrive, and grow exceeding rich by it. The Innholders paying as much for the Excise of Victuals and Drink, as they did at first for the Thing, it makes the Entrata or Revenue of those High and Mighty States (who, when they implor’d Queen Elizabeth’s Aid, writ themselves the poor, distressed States of Holland) very considerable. This free State entertaining all Renegadoes, it is the common Sink of Villany; each Faction calls itself a Church; and every new-fangled, giddy-headed, enthusiastical Botcher, Cobler, or Tinker, is able enough to sow Sedition: But the general Religion here is Calvanism, the Profession whereof, tho’ fatal to Monarchical Government, agrees well enough with the Parity of free States, where the People have so much Voice and Authority.

Holland, with the 16 other Provinces is call’d the Low-Countries, and the Netherlands, from their low Situation. Here live almost as many, if not more, Jews, Anabaptists, Socinians, and Papists, as Calvanists; so that a Traveller who comes hither, need not want a Religion to choose which shall best please him. Whilst I was in Rotterdam, being one Night in Company with some of the Dutch Boors, who were extolling Erasmus, who was born in that Town, for the greatest Scholar the World ever bred, my Blood broil’d at their Insolence, as knowing England, and other Nations have produc’d Men of better Learning, but they being too many for me to resent it, I had no other Way to vent my Resentment, but by writing the following Lines, which I privately stuck upon his Effigies cast in Brass, and erected not far from the House where he was born.

But the high and mighty States being affronted at this Lampoon put upon their chief Priest, a Proclamation was issued forth, promising the Reward of 500 Guilders for apprehending the Author of it; whereupon I fled to Delph in the twinckling of a Bed-Staff. This is a pretty round compacted Town, about 2 Miles in Circumference, fortified with a strong Wall and Ditch, but after an old Fashion; and is the great Magazine and Armory of the Commonwealth, which is democratical, as I said before, for Monarchy they abhor as much as a Scotchman does Episcopacy, or a true bred Irishman paying Allegiance to a Protestant Prince.

From Delph I went to the Hague, the Metropolis of Holland, not for Trade, but for the States assembling at this Place, which is round compacted, and neatly built: It is neither Town nor City, but call’d a Village, as being unwall’d, and is reckon’d the biggest in the World. Within half a League of this Place lies interr’d in an Abby Margaret Countess of Henenberg, Sister to William, King of the Romans, and on her Tomb still remains an Epitaph, which mentions, that she brought forth as many Children at one Birth, as are Days in the Year. The Country has few Trees in it, because the Ground is so waterish and soft, that it is not able to bear the Weight of one; and for the same Reason a less Quantity of Fruit and Grain grows in it.

Their chiefest Fuel is Turf, of which they burn so much, that it may be very well thought the Dutch will burn up their own Land before the Day of Judgment They are so cumbred about the Affairs and Business of this World, that their Ignorance in Religion is unaccountable. The Theological Terms of Regeneration, Consubstantiality, Predestination, Justification, Sanctification, or hypostatical Union, are full as mysterious to them, as the intricate Hierogliphics of the antient Egyptians were to the Vulgar. ’Tis true, they nevertheless keep the Sabbath-Day very strict, for all the while that divine Service in their blind way holas, they do no manner of Work but wash in the open Streets, keep Shops almost open, angle, sing, play on the Musick, dance, drink, and whore; for as six Days are tiresome to be at hard Labour, their high Mightinesses allow the People one Day in seven to go to the Devil with Pleasure. In five, the Dutch are good for nothing but to be serv’d as a Sultan or Grand Seignior once advis’d a French King, which advice was to send an Army of Pioneers to dig up their Country, and throw all the Inhabitants at once into the Sea.

FINIS.

Transcriber’s Note

The following changes have been made to the text to correct suspected printing errors.

Minor errors (punctuation, turned letter u/n, missing or superfluous spaces) have been corrected without further note.