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

VICE IN ROME
83
commended be all; none wt whom a person may move easily
and sooner make his acquaintance then wt them, and yet as
they say wery difficult to board ; the Englishwomen being
plat contrary. They wil dance wt him, theyle laugh and sport
wt him, and use al innocent freedome imaginable, and this
rather wt strangers then their oune. . . . d
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 com¬
parison of them wt the Spaniard. I have caused Madame
Daille some vinter nights sit doune and tell me tales, which
I fand of the same very stuffe wt our oune, beginning wt that
usually II y avoit un Roy et une Reine, etc., only instead of
our red dracons and giants they have lougarous or war-
woophs? 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.
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 cormes3 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.4
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 occa¬
sion 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
Four lines erased in MS.
Sorb apples.
Loups-garou or were-wolves.
Parsnips.