"As Irish as O'Hanlan's breech;"
they "matched with the Kavanaghs of Carlow, and held with them," and thus became involved in the interminable feuds of the native tribes, and, like them, they left their estates to their bastards.
"The fashion of the Irish wars at that time" is there described, but probably not more graphically than in Derrick's quaint doggrel verses. "The Irish Churle's Tale" is next told; the churl was the husbandman, the "Protectionist" of the day, who doubtless could tell many piteous tales of oppression, rapine, and ravishment, whose only hope of protection lay in acting as a sort of sponge to some "wild lord" (who would guard him from being plundered by others, that he might himself devour his substance), and whose "tenant-right" cry of that day was "spend me, but defend me."
The volume affirms that "the wild Irishmen were better than we in reverencing their religion:" the verb is used in the preterimperfect tense. "The old Irish diet was to dine at night;" this is even a stranger assertion. Higden, in his Polychronicon, declares of the Irish clergy,
"They ben chaste, and sayen many prayers, and done great abstinence a-day, and drinketh all night."
That glorious chanson à boire, commencing
"I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good;
But I do think that I can drink
With him that wears a hood!"