1559-] SHAN a NEIL. 103 At the time when the crown passed to Elizabeth the good and bad qualities of the people were thus described by a correspondent of the council. 1 The appearance and outward behaviour of the Irish sheweth them to be fruits of no good tree, for they exercise no virtue, and refrain and forbear from no vice, but think it lawful to do every man what him listeth. ' They neither love nor dread God nor yet hate the devil. They are worshippers of images and open idol- aters. Their common oath they swear is by books, bells, and other ornaments which they do use as holy religion. Their chief and solemnest oath is by their lord's or master's hand, which whoso forsweareth is sure to pay a fine or sustain a worse turn. ' The Sabbath day they rest from all honest exer- cises, and the week days they are not idle, but worse occupied. ' They do not honour their father or mother so much as they do reverence strangers. ' For every murder they commit they do not so soon repent ; for whose blood they once shed, they lightly never cease killing all that name. 1 They do not so commonly commit adultery ; not for that they profess or keep chastity, but for that they seldom or never marry, and therefore few of them are lawful heirs, by the laws of the realm, to the lands they possess. ' They steal but from the strong, and take by vio- lence from the poor and weak.
