This much precisely for the French mony (only its not to be forgotten that no goldsmith dare melt any propre French mony under the pain of hanging), their langage, and their women: of the men we touched something already in a comparison of them wt the Spaniard. I have caused Madame Daillé some vinter nights sit doune and tell me tales, which I fand of the same very stuffe wt our oune, beginning wt that usually Il y avoit un Roy et une Reine, etc., only instead of our red dracons and giants they have lougarous or war-woophs.[202] She told me on a tyme the tale or conte of daupht Jock wt his sotteries, iust as we have it in Scotland. We have laughten no litle at some.
[202] Loups-garou or were-wolves,
We saw the greatest aple we ever saw, which we had the curiosity to measure, to measure about and fand it 18 large inches. The gourds are monstrous great heir: we have sein them greater then any cannon bullet ever we saw. We have eaten cormes[203] heir, which is a very poor fruit, tho the peasants makes a drink of it they call cormet. In Octobre is the tyme of their roots, as Riphets, tho they eat of them al summer throw, neips and passeneips.[204]
[203] Sorb apples.
[204] Parsnips.
Let us mark the reason whey the Pope permits bordel houses at Rome, and then let us sie who can liberat it from clashing immediatly wt the Aposles rule, Romans 3, v. 8. O. sayes the Pope, the toleration of stues in this place is the occasion of wery much good, and cuts short the occasion of wery mutch evil, for if men, especially the Italian, who, besydes his natural genius to Venery, is poussed by the heat of the country had not vomen at their command to stanch them, its to be feared that they would betake themselfes to Sodomy (for which stands the Apology of the Archbischop of Casa at this day), Adultery, and sick like illicit commixtions, since even notwtstanding of this licence we grant to hinder them from the other, (for ex duabus malis minus est eligendum), we sie some stil perpetrating the other. O brave, but since we sould not do evil that good sould come theirof, either let us say this praetext to be false and vicket, or the Aposles rule to be erroneous. Nixt if ye do it on so good a account, whence comes it that the whores most buy their licence by a 100,000 livres a year they pay to your exchequer, whey have they not simply their liberty since its a act, as ye say, of so good consequence?
The ancient inhabitants of Rome at that tyme when it became of Pagan Christian seimes to me much viser then our reformers under Knox when we past from Papisme to Protestantisme. They did not demolish the Heathen Idol temples, as we furiously did Christian, but converted them to Christian temples, amongs others witness the stately temple dedicat to the goddess Fortune, much respected by the Romans, at present a church. Yea the Italians boasts that they have cheated, robbed the Devil in converting that hous which was consecrat for his service unto the service of the true God. But all that heirs of our act laughts at it as madness.
Theirs a Scots Colledge at Rome.
I find that conclusion the Duke of Burgundy tried on a peasant, whom he fand in a deip sleip in the fields as he returned from the hunting on a tyme, wery good. On a tyme we fel a discoursing of those that are given to riseng in their sleip and do things, whiles more exactly then give they ware waking. I cannot forget on drollery. 2 gentlemen fell to lodge to gither at one innes, the one began to plead for a bed by himselfe, since the other would find him a wery ill bedfellow, for he was so much given to hunting, that in the night he used to rise and cry up and doune the chambre hobois, hobois, as on his dog; the other thought Il'e sy if I can put you from that, wheiron he feigned he was iust of that temper in rising thorow his sleip, and that he was so much given to his horses that he thought he was dressing and speaking to them. Since it was so[205] they lay both together; about midnight the one rises in his sleip begines to cry on his doges; the other had brought a good whip to the bed wt him, makes himselfe to rise as throw his sleip, fals to and whipes the other throw the house like a companion,[206] whiles crying, Up, brouny; whiles, Sie the iade it wil no stir. The other wakened son enough, crying for mercy, for he was not a horse; the other, after he had whipt him soundly, made himselfe to waken, wheiron the other fel a railing on him; the other excused himselfe wery fairly, since he thought he was whiping his horses. In the interim the other never rose to cry on his doges again.
[205] Interlined.