And whereas that
some of those who bear this auld and honourable
name may take scorn that it ariseth from the tilling
of the ground, quhilk men account a slavish occupation,
yet we ought to honour the pleugh and
spade, seeing we all derive our being from our father
Adam, whose lot it became to cultivate the
earth, in respect of his fall and transgression.
``Also we have witness, as weel in holy writt
as in profane history, of the honour in quhilk husbandrie
was held of old, and how prophets have
been taken from the pleugh, and great captains
raised up to defend their ain countries, sic as Cincinnatus,
and the like, who fought not the common
enemy with the less valiancy that their arms had
been exercised in halding the stilts of the pleugh,
and their bellicose skill in driving of yauds and
owsen.
``Likewise there are sindry honorable families,
quhilk are now of our native Scottish nobility, and
have clombe higher up the brae of preferment than
what this house of Croftangry hath done, quhilk
shame not to carry in their warlike shield and insignia
of dignity, tile tools and implements the
quhilk their first forefathers exercised in labouring
the croft-rig, or, as the poet Virgilius calleth it
eloquently, in subduing the soil.
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