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[17] The Low-countries appear to have afforded ample room for ridicule at all times. In "A brief Character of the Low-countries under the States, being Three Weeks Observation of the Vices and Virtues of the Inhabitants, written by Owen Felltham, and printed Lond. 1659, 12mo. we find them epitomized as a general sea-land—the great bog of Europe—an universal quagmire—in short a green cheese in pickle. The sailors (in which denomination the author appears to include all the natives,) he describes as being able to "drink, rail, swear, niggle, steal, and be lowsie alike. P. 40.

[18] Gavelkind, or the practice of dividing lands equally among all the male children of the deceased, was (according to Spelman,) adopted by the Saxons, from Germany, and is noticed by Tacitus in his description of that nation. Gloss. Archaiol. folio. Lond. 1664. Harrison, in The Description of England, prefixed to Holinshed's Chronicle, (vol. 1. page 180,) says, "Gauell kind is all the male children equallie to inherit, and is continued to this daie in Kent, where it is onelie to my knowledge reteined, and no where else in England." And Lambarde, in his Customes of Kent, (Perambulation, 4to. 1596, page 538,) thus notices it:—"The custom of Grauelkynde is generall, and spreadeth itselfe throughout the whole shyre, into all landes subiect by auncient tenure vnto the same, such places onely excepted, where it is altered by acte of parleament."