The map of the first country in the series of fifty by which the work is illustrated is that of Great Britain. The people of SCOTLAND, Villanovanus informs his reader, are hot-tempered, prone to revenge, and fierce in their anger; but valiant in war and patient beyond belief of cold, hunger, and fatigue. They are handsome in person, and their clothing and language are the same as those of the Irish, their tunics being dyed yellow, their legs bare, and their feet protected by sandals of undressed hide with the hair on. They live mainly on fish and flesh; they have numerous flocks, mostly of sheep, for the country is free from wolves; and they have milk and cheese in abundance. Their arms are bows and arrows and broad swords--_lati gladii_. Instead of wood, they have coal for fuel. Unlike the people of the last few generations, he says the Scotch are not a particularly religious people. He ‘who never feared the face of man,’ as the Earl of Morton said of Knox, when looking down on his dead body, had not yet made himself felt in the land of his birth; and the School-house had not yet risen as a necessary complement to the Kirk and the Manse, to make the people of Scotland what they have become since his day--among the very foremost of the sons of men. ENGLAND, Villanovanus observes, is wonderfully well peopled, and the inhabitants are long-lived. Tall in stature, they are fair in complexion, and have blue eyes. They are brave in war, and admirable bowmen. He has the familiar tale of the English children seen as captives at Rome by the blessed Gregory, who said they were called Angli, indeed; but in form and feature showed like Angeli. He must, as it seems, have given some little attention to the English language, if he did not study it more particularly. He says it is so difficult to learn and to pronounce, because the people who speak it are a compound of so many different races. Of IRELAND and the Irish our editor does not speak so favourably. The country, he observes, is generally marshy, so that, unless the summers are dry, the cattle are apt to get lost in the bogs. It is free from noxious creatures of every kind, there being no reptiles, such as snakes, toads, and frogs, and no insects, such as spiders and bees--a state of things which, if it ever obtained, certainly does so no longer. The climate is very temperate, and the soil of great fertility; but the people are rude, inhospitable, barbarous, and cruel, more given to hunting and idle play than to industry. Only three days’ sail from Spain, the Irish, he says, have many customs in common with the Spaniards.