a ſack can hold their filler, ſix houses and a half cannot contain their ambitious deſires. Fortunatus’s wonderful purſe would fail in fetching in the fourth part of their worldly wants, and the children imitate their mothers, chattering like hungry cranes, crying ſtill, I want, I want, ever craving, willfully waſting, till all be brought to a doleful diſh of deſolation, and with cleanneſs of teeth, a full breaſt, an empty belly, big pokets without pence, pinching penury perfect poverty, drouth, hunger, want of money, and friends both, old age, dim eyes, feeble joints, without shoes or clothes, the real fruits of a bad marriage, which brings thoughtlets Fops to both faith and repentance in one day.
Thirdly, Another thing I ſee, hear, and cannot help, is the breeding of bairns, and bringing them up like bill-ſtirks, they gie them walth o’ meat, but nae manners; but whan I was a bairn, if I didna bend to obedience, I ken myſel what I gat, which learned me what to gie mine again; if they had tell’d me tuts, or prute-no, I laid them o’er my knee, and a corn’d crack for crack o’er their hurdies, like a knock bleaching a harn web, till the red wats ſtood on their hips this brought obedience into my houſe, and baniſhed dods and ill-nature out at the door; I dang the de’il out o’ them, and dadded them like a wet diſh-clout till they did my bidding: But now the bairns are brought up to ſpit fire in their mither’s face, and caſt dirt at their
