them fall by the sword, nor bee slaine by the souldiour, yet thus being kept from manurance, and their cattle from running abroad, by this hard restraint they would quickly consume themselves, and devoure one another. The proofe whereof, I saw sufficiently exampled in these late warres of Mounster; for not withstanding that the same was a most rich and plentifull countrey, full of corne and cattle, that you would have thought they should have beene able to stand long, yet ere one yeare and a halfe they were brought to such wretchednesse, as that any stony heart would have rued the same. Out of every corner [o 1] of the woods and glynnes they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legges could not beare them; [o 2] they looked like anatomies of death, they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eate the dead carrions, happy where they could finde them, yea, and one another soone after, insomuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and, if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the
- ↑ of the woods and glynnes] Glens, that is, dales or vallies; here spelt in the original edition glynnes perhaps in conformity to the Irish pronunciation. So pen was accustomed, in the same country, to be pronounced pin. See Castle Rack-Rent, an Hibernian Tale, &c. p. 77. Todd.
- ↑ they looked like anatomies of death,] Thus Shakspeare, in his Comedy of Errors:
"They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain,
"A mere anatomy, a mountebank, &c
. "A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
"A living dead man." Todd.
