VEN. 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 fears and cares, but sing sweetly all the day, and sleep securely all the night and, without doubt, honest, innocent, pretty Maudlin does so. I'll bestow Sir Thomas Overbury's Milkmaid's wish upon her, "that she may die in the Spring; and, being dead, may have good store of flowers stuck round about her winding-sheet."

"THE MILK-MAID'S MOTHER'S ANSWER.

"If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee, and be thy love.

"But time drives flocks from field to fold:
When rivers rage, and rocks grow cold,
Then Philomel becometh dumb,

And age complains of cares to come.

"The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward Winter reckoning yields:
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,

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Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,

Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,

Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten;
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

"Thy belt of straw, and ivy-buds,

Thy coral clasps and amber studs,

All these in me no means can move
To come to thee, and be thy Love.

"What should we talk of dainties then,
Of better meat than 's fit for men?
These are but vain: that's only good
Which God hath blest, and sent for food.

"But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then those delights my mind might move,
To live with thee, and be thy love."

But stay,

MOTHER. Well, I have done my song. honest Anglers, for I will make Maudlin to sing you one short song more. Maudlin, sing that song that you sung last night, when young Coridon the Shepherd played so purely on his oaten pipe to you and your Cousin Retty.

MAUD. I will, Mother.

"I married a wife of late,

The more's my unhappy fate:
I married her for love,
As my fancy did me move,
And not for a worldly estate :

"But oh! the green-sickness
Soon changed her likeness,
And all her beauty did fail.
But 't is not so

With those that go,

Through frost and snow,

As all men know,

And carry the milking-pail.”

PISC. Well sung! Good woman, I thank you. I'll give you another dish of fish one of these days; and then beg another song of you. Come, Scholar, let Maudlin alone: do not you offer to spoil her voice. Look! yonder comes mine Hostess, to call us to supper. How now! is my brother Peter come?

HOST. Yes, and a friend with him; they are both glad to hear that you are in these parts, and long to see you, and long to be at supper, for they be very hungry.

THE THIRD AND FOURTH DAYS.

CHAP. V. - More Directions how to fish for, and how to make for the TROUT an ARTIFICIAL MINNOW and FLIES, with some Merriment.

PISCATOR.

ELL met, Brother Peter! I heard you and a

WELL

friend would lodge here to-night, and that hath made me to bring my friend to lodge here too. My friend is one that would fain be a Brother of the Angle: he hath been an Angler but this day, and I have taught him how to catch a Chub by daping with a grasshopper; and the Chub he caught was a lusty one of nineteen inches long. But pray, Brother Peter, who is your companion?

PETER. Brother Piscator, my friend is an honest Countryman, and his name is Coridon, and he is a downright witty companion, that met me here purposely to be pleasant and eat a Trout; and I have not yet wetted my line since we met together: but I hope to fit him with a Trout for his breakfast, for I'll be early up.

PISC. Nay, brother, you shall not stay so long: for, look you! here is a TROUT will fill six reasonable bellies.

Come, Hostess, dress it presently, and get us what other meat the house will afford, and give us some of your best barley-wine, the good liquor that our honest forefathers did use to drink of; the drink which preserved their health, and made them live so long, and to do so many good deeds.

PETER. O' my word, this Trout is perfect in season. Come, I thank you, and here is a hearty draught to you, and to all the Brothers of the Angle wheresoever they be, and to my young brother's good fortune tonorrow. I will furnish him with a rod, if you will furnish him with the rest of the tackling; we will set him up and make him a fisher. And I will tell him one thing for his encouragement, that his fortune hath made him happy to be scholar to such a master; a master that knows as much both of the nature and breeding of fish as any man: and can also tell him as well how to catch and cook them, from the Minnow to the Salmon, as any that I ever met withal.

PISC. Trust me, Brother Peter, I find my Scholar to be so suitable to my own humor, which is to be free,