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low1 now at least fifty years ago; and the milk-maid's mother sung" an answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger days.2

They were old fashioned poetry, but choicely good; I think much better than the strong lines that are now in fashion in this critical age Look yonder! on my word, yonder they both be a-milking again. I will give her the chub [which we have just caught], and persuade them to sing those two songs to us.

God speed you, good woman, I have been a-fishing, and am going to Bleak Hall to my bed, and have caught more fish than will sup myself and my friend: I will bestow this upon you and your daughter, for I use to sell none.

Milk-woman. Marry, God requite you, sir, and we'll eat it cheerfully; and if you come this way a-fishing two months hence, a grace of God, I'll give you a syllabub of new verjuice in a new made hay-cock (i.e. while you are sitting on, &c.) for it, and my Maudlin shall sing you one of her best ballads; for she and I both love all anglers, they be such honest civil quiet men; in the meantime will you drink a draught of redcow's milk? you shall have it freely.

Pisc. No, I thank you, but I pray do us a courtesy that shall stand you and your daughter in nothing, and yet we will think ourselves still something in your debt; it is but to sing us a song, that was sung by your daughter when I last passed over this meadow, about eight or nine days since.

Milk-w. What song was it, I pray? Was it, "Come, shepherds, deck your herds?" or, "As at noon Dulcinea rested?" or,

(1) Kit. Marlow. Christopher Marlow was a dramatist of the Elizabethan age. The song referred to is that beginning

"Come, live with me, and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove," &c.

He died in 1593, so that Walton was not very correct in the date. (2) Raleigh. The song is that beginning―

"If all the world and love were young,

And truth on every shepherd's tongue," &c.

It is considered doubtful whether Raleigh wrote it, and if so, as he was forty-one years of age when Marlow died, it would hardly have been in his younger days. (3) A grace of God, or a God's grace, like "a God's name," where a is for in, or by.

(4) Verjuice, fr. Fr. vert jus, green or unripe juice compounded into a liquor. A couplet of Dryden's gives an idea of the pronunciation of the word in his timeHimself, for saving charges,

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A peel'd, slic'd onion eats, and tipples verjuice."

"Phillida flouts me?" or, "Chevy Chace?" or, "Johnny Armstrong? or, "Troy Town?"

Pisc. No, it is none of those: it is a song that your daughter sung the first part, and you sung the answer to it.

Milk-w. O, İ know it now. I learned the first part in my golden days, when I was about the age of my poor daughter; and the latter part, which, indeed, fits me best now, but two or three years ago, when the cares of the world began to take hold of me; but you shall, God willing, hear them both, and sung as well as we can, for we both love anglers. Come, Maudlin, sing the first part to the gentlemen with a merry heart, and I'll sing the second when you have done. (She sings the song, “Come, live with me," &c.)

Venator. Trust me, master, it is a choice song, and sweetly sung by honest Maudlin. I now see it was not without cause, that our good Queen Elizabeth did so often wish herself a milkmaid all the month of May; because they are not troubled with cares, but sing sweetly all the day, and sleep securely all the night; and, without doubt, honest, innocent, pretty Maudlin does so. I will bestow Sir Thomas Overbury's milkmaid's wish on her,—that she may die in the spring, and have a good store of flowers stuck round her winding-sheet.

2. CONTENTMENT AND THANKFULNESS.

(FROM THE SAME WORK.)

Piscator. Well, scholar, we having still a mile to Tottenham High Cross, I will, as we walk towards it, in the cool shade of this sweet honeysuckle-hedge, mention to you some of the thoughts and joys that have possessed my soul since we two met together. And these thoughts shall be told you, that you also may join with me in thankfulness to the Giver of every good and perfect gift for our happiness. And that our present happiness may appear to be the greater, and we the more thankful for it, I will beg you to consider with me how many do, even at this very time, lie under the torment of the stone, the gout, and toothache; and this we are free from. And every misery that I miss is a new mercy, and therefore let us be thankful. There have been since we met, others that have met disasters of broken limbs: some have been blasted (blown up with gunpowder), others "thunder-strucken;" and we have been freed from these, and all those many other miseries that

threaten human nature; let us therefore rejoice and be thankful. Nay, which is a far greater mercy, we are free from the unsupportable burden of an accusing, tormenting conscience; a misery that none can bear, and therefore let us praise Him for his preventing grace, and say, every misery that I miss is a new mercy. Nay, let me tell you, there be many that have forty times our estates, that would give the greatest part of it to be healthful and cheerful like us; who, with the expense of a little money, have eat and drunk, and laughed, and angled, and sung, and slept securely; and rose next day, and cast away care, and sung, and laughed, and angled again; which are blessings rich men cannot purchase with all their money. Let me tell you, scholar, I have a rich neighbour, that is always so busy that he has no leisure to laugh; the whole business of his life is to get money, and more money, that he may still get more and more money; he is still drudging on, and says that Solomon says, "The diligent hand maketh rich;" and it is true, indeed. But he considers not that 'tis not in the power of riches to make a man happy; for it was wisely said by a man of great observation, "That there be as many miseries beyond riches as on this side them." And yet God deliver us from pinching poverty; and grant, that having a competency, we may be content and thankful. Let not us repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another abound with riches; when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep those riches, hang often so heavily at the rich man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and restless nights, even when others sleep quietly. We see but the outside of the rich man's happiness; few consider him to be like the silkworm, that when she seems to play, is at the very same time spinning her own bowels and consuming herself. And this many rich men do; loading themselves with corroding cares to keep what they have, probably, unconscionably (unrighteously) got. Let us therefore be thankful for health and competence, and above all, for a quiet conscience.

My honest scholar, all this is told to incline you to thankfulness; and to incline you the more, let me tell you that the prophet David was said to be a man after God's own heart, because he abounded more with thankfulness than any other that is mentioned in holy Scripture, as may appear in his book of Psalms, where there is such a commixture of his confessing

(1) Bishop Hall says (see extract, p. 115), "Every evil that I miss is a new mercy."

of his sins and unworthiness, and such thankfulness for God's pardon and mercies, as did make him to be accounted, even by God himself, to be a man after his own heart. And let us in that labour to be as like him as we can; let not the blessings we receive daily from God make us not to value, or not to praise Him, because they be common; let not us forget to praise Him for the innocent mirth and pleasure we have met with since we met together. What would a blind man give to see the pleasant rivers, and meadows, and flowers, and fountains, that we have met with since we met together? I have been told that if a man that was born blind could obtain to have his sight for but only one hour during his whole life, and should, at the first opening of his eyes, fix his sight upon the sun when in its full glory, either at the rising or the setting of it, he would be so transported and amazed, and so admire the glory of it, that he would not willingly turn his eyes from that first ravishing object, to behold all the other various beauties this world could present to him. And this, and many other like blessings, we enjoy daily; and for most of them, because they be so common, most men forget to pay their praises; but let not us; because it is a sacrifice so pleasing to Him that made that sun, and us, and still protects us, and gives us flowers, and showers, and stomachs, and meat, and content, and leisure to go a-fishing.

DR. SOUTH.1

1. PLEASURES OF RELIGION.

(FROM "SERMONS," PUBLISHED ABOUT 1660.)

THE pleasure of religion never satiates or wearies; for it properly affects the spirit, and a spirit feels no weariness, as being

(1) South's style has great merit. It is flowing, full, and pregnant. All his words have a function to perform, and are made to perform it. He does not aim at fine writing, nor is he hampered, as some of his predecessors were, with his learning. He wears those fetters which a scholastic education had fastened upon him with a manly grace. He is occasionally vulgar; but this characteristic was as much a reflex of the spirit of the age as a native product of his own. His impetuosity, too, and spitefulness-for he cannot escape this charge-rendered him less careful than a man of cooler temperament would have been about the choice of his weapons.

privileged from the causes of it. But can the epicure say so of any of the pleasures that he so much dotes upon? Do they not expire while they satisfy? and after a few minutes' refreshment, determine (end) in loathing and unquietness? How short is the interval between a pleasure and a burden! how undiscernible the transition from one to the other! Pleasure dwells no longer upon the appetite "then" the necessities of nature, which are quickly and easily provided for; and then all that follows is a load and an oppression. Every morsel to a satisfied hunger is only a new labour to a tired digestion. Every draught to him that has "quencht" his thirst is but a further quenching of nature, and a provision for rheum (spleen, melancholy) and diseases; a drowning of the quickness and activity of the spirits.

He that prolongs his meals and sacrifices his time as well as his other conveniences to his luxury, how quickly does he outsit his pleasure! and then how is all the following time bestowed upon ceremony and surfeit! till at length, after a long fatigue of eating, and drinking, and babbling, he concludes the great work of dining "gentilely," and so makes a shift to rise from table that he may lie down upon his bed; where, after he has slept himself into some use of himself, by much ado he staggers to his table again, and there acts over the same "bruitish" scene. So that he passes his whole life in a dozed condition between sleeping and waking, with a kind of drowsiness and confusion upon his senses; which, what pleasure it can be, is hard to conceive; all that is of it dwells upon the tip of his tongue and within the compass of his palate-a worthy prize for a man to purchase with the loss of his time, his reason, and himself!

Nor is that man less deceived that thinks to maintain a constant tenure of pleasure by a continual pursuit of sports and recreations; for it is most certainly true of all these things, that as they refresh a man when he is weary, so they weary

(1) Gentilely, now spelt genteelly, and widely changed in meaning from the original use. The radical idea is derived fr. Lat. gentilis, one who belonged to a gens or great family at Rome; hence Fr., gentil homme, a noble man. It was much used in this sense and also in the secondary one of high-born, or courtly, in manners. Chaucer says

"He is gentile, because he doth

As longeth (belongeth) to a gentil man."

Jeremy Taylor speaks of "civile and gentile company;" then lastly we have, in the "Spectator," "genteel" in the modern sense.