s were builded of willow,
then had we oken men; but now that our houses are come to be made of
oke, our men are not onlie become willow, but a great manie, through
Persian delicacie crept in among vs, altogither of straw, which is a
sore alteration.

"Now haue we manie chimnies; and yet our tenderlings complaine of
rheumes, catarhs, and poses. Then had we none but reredosses; and our
heads did neuer ake. For as the smoke in those daies was supposed to
be a sufficient hardning for the timber of the house, so it was
reputed a far better medicine to keepe the goodman and his familie
from the quacke or pose, wherewith, as then, verie few were oft
acquainted."[14]

--when he describes the beauty, virtue, learning, and housewifery, of
Queen Elizabeth's Maids of Honour, he yet acknowledges that as the men

"our common courtiers (for the most part) are the best lerned and
indued with excellent gifts, so are manie of them the worst men, when
they come abroad, that anie man shall either heare or read of."

Even the Papist Monks,[15] whom--as a marrid Protestant parson and
vicar--he hates, he praises for their buildings. And when he does abuse or
chaff heartily any absurdity, like Englishmen's dress,--"except it were a
dog in a doublet, you shall not see anie so disguised as are my countrie
men of England,"--we may be sure it was deservd; Shakspere does it
too[16] (_Merchant_, I. ii. 80; _Much Ado_, III. ii. 36, etc.).

Harrison's book will inform and amuse the reader.

Besides writing the _Descriptions of Britaine and England_ for Holinshed's
_Chronicle_, William Harrison also translated for it, from Scotch into
English, Archdeacon Bellenden's version of Hector Boetius's Latin
Description of Scotland. This work took him only "three or foure daies" he
says: "Indeed, the trauell taken heerein is not great, bicause I tie not
my translation vnto his [Bellenden's] letter." Harrison dedicated this
translation--the _Description of Scotland_--to the Maister Sackford, or
Secford, whose "cards," charts, or Maps, had been of such use to him in
his account of the English rivers in his _Description of Britaine_.

Happily for us, William Harrison was not one of those dignified prigs who
are afraid of writing about themselves in their books. He tells us that he
was born in London[17]--"I will remember the fame of London my natiue
citie."[18] Also that he was first at