a rickle of banes row’d up in a runkly ſkin, had waſted her body with water-lythocks into a ſcurse of ſkin and bane, for want of teeth to chew bread for the nouriſhment of her body, and that he was corn’d on purpoſe to write her teſtament or letter will, that it was a lightneſs in her brain before death; therefore ſhe ought to go to bed and die directly, which ſhe accordingly did, by taking thought of what he ſaid unto her; the prieſt being ſent for, came and diſcoursed with her, but ſtill ſhe keeping her purſe in her hand, which he obſerving, deſired ſhe would give it to her friends or ſhe died, to which ſhe made anſwer, by her ſooth that ſhe wad not, for ſhe wad tak it wi’ her, ſhe had heard every body ſay, they were the better o’ the penny wi’ them gang whare they like, and ſo died, ſupposed to be a hundred and ſix years old.
An Oration on the Virtues of the Old
Women, and the Pride of the Young.
THE madneſs of this unmuzzled age has driven me to mountains of thoughts, and a continual meditation: It is enough to make an auld wife rin redwood, and drive a body beyond the halter’s end of ill-nature, to ſee what I ſee, and hear what I hear: Therefore the hinges of my anger are broke, and the bands of my good and mild nature are burſt in two, the door of civility is laid quite open, plain ſpeech and mild admonition is
