Series 1 > Journals of Sir John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall, with his observations on public affairs and other memoranda, 1665-1676

48
JOURNAL OF JOHN LAUDER
something of truth in it; for who knows not the pride of the
Castilian : if a Castilian then a Demigod. He thinks himselfe
ex meliore Into natus then the rest of the world is.
Its a fine drollery to sie a Frenchman conterfit the Castilian
as he marches on his streets of Castile wt his castilian bever
cockt, his hand in his syde, his march and paw1 speaking pride it
selfe. Who knows not also that mortell feud that the Castilian
carries to the Portugueze and the Portuegueze reciprocally to
them, and whence this I beseich you if not from the conceit they
have of themselfe. This minds me of a pretty story I have
heard them tell of a Castilian who at Lisbon came into a
widows chop to buy something. She was sitting wt her
daughter; the lass observing his habit crys to her mother, do
not sell him nothing, mother, hees a Castilian, the mother
chiding her daughter replied, whow dare you call the honest
man a Castilian; on that tenet they hold that a Castilian
cannot be a honest man. I leive you to ghesse whether the
daughters wipe or the mothers was tartest.
Howell (as I remember) in a letter (its in the first volume,
letter 43) he writes from Lyons, he Andes the 2 rivers on which
that brave city (for its situation yeelding to none in Europe, not
to London tho’ on lovely Thames) standes on, to wit the Rhosne
and the Sosne, to be a pretty embleme of the diversity thats
betuixt the humeurs of thess 2 mighty nations (France and
Spain), who deservedly may be termed the 2 axletrees or poles
on which the Microcosme of Europe turnes. Its theirfor wery
much in the concernement of the rest of Europe to hold their
2 poles at a even balance, lest the one chancing at lenth to
wieght doune the other there be no resisting of him, and we
find ourselfes wise behind the hand.
Looking again on the Rhosne, which runes impetuously and
wiolently, it mindes him of the French galliardness and lightness,
or even inconstancy. Looking again on the Sosne, and finding
it glid smoothly and calmly in its channel, its mindes him (he
sayes) of the rigid gravity the Spaniard affected. And to speak
the truth, this pride and selfe conceetedness is more legible in
the Spaniard than in the French, yet if our experience abuse
us not, we have discovered a great tincture of it in the French.
1 paw = pas.