of their bleating dams. As I thus sat these and other sights had so fully possessed my soul with content that I thought as the poet has happily expressed it,

'I was for that time lifted above earth,

And possessed joys not promised in my birth.'

As I left the place and entered into the next field, a second pleasure entertained me; 'twas a handsome Milkmaid that had not yet attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any fears of many things that will never be, as too many men too often do; but she cast away all care, and sung like a nightingale. Her voice was good, and the ditty fitted for it; 'twas that smooth song, which was made by Kit Marlowe, now at least fifty years ago: and the Milkmaid's mother sung an answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger days.

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 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 having caught more fish than will sup myself and my friend, I will bestow this upon you and your daughter, for I use 1 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 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 mean time will you drink a draught of red cow's milk? you shall have it freely.

Piscator. No, I thank you; but I pray do us a courtesy that shall stand you and your daughter in

1 Am wont.

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-Woman. What song was it, I pray? Was it 'Come, Shepherds, deck your herds?' or, As at noon Dulcina rested?' or 'Philida flouts me?' or Chevy Chace? or Johnny Armstrong? or Troy Town?

Piscator. 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-Woman. Oh, I know it now; I learned the first part in my golden age, 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.-The Compleat Angler.

JOHN EARLE

1601 (?)-1665

A CHILD

Is a man in a small letter, yet the best copy of Adam before he tasted of Eve, or the Apple; and he is happy whose small practice in the world can only write this character. He is Nature's fresh picture newly drawn in oil, which time and much handling dims and defaces. His soul is yet a white paper unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith at length it becomes a blurred note book. He is purely happy, because he knows no evil, nor hath made means by sin to be

acquainted with misery. He arrives not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures evils to come by foreseeing them. He kisses and loves all, and when the smart of the rod is past, smiles on his beater. Nature and his parents alike dandle him, and tice him on with a bait of sugar to a draught of worm wood. He plays yet, like a young prentice the first day, and is not come to his task of melancholy. His hardest labour is his tongue, as if he were loath to use so deceitful an organ; and he is best company with it when he can but prattle. We laugh at his foolish sports, but his game is our earnest; and his drums, rattles and hobby horses but the emblems and mockings of man's business. His father hath writ him as his own little story, wherein he reads those days of his life that he cannot remember; and sighs to see what innocence he has outlived. The elder he grows he is a stair lower from God; and like his first father much worse in his breeches. He is the christian's example and the old man's relapse: the one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his simplicity. Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got eternity without a burthen, and exchanged but one heaven for another.— Micro-Cosmographie.

AN ANTIQUARY

He is a man strangely thrifty of time past and an enemy indeed to his Maw, whence he fetches out many things when they are now all rotten and stinking. He is one that hath that unnatural disease to be enamoured of old age and wrinkles, and loves all things (as Dutchmen do cheese) the better for being mouldy and wormeaten. He is of our religion, because we say it is most ancient; and yet a broken statue would almost make him an idolater. A great admirer he is of the rust of old monuments, and reads only those characters where time hath eaten out the letters. He will go you forty

miles to see a Saint's Well or ruined Abbey: and if there be but a Cross or stone foot-stool in the way, he'll be considering it so long, till he forget his journey. His estate consists much in shekels and Roman coins, and he hath more pictures of Cæsar, than James or Elizabeth. Beggars cozen him with musty things which they have raked from dunghills and he preserves their rags for precious relics. He loves no Library, but where there are more spiders' volumes than authors', and looks with great admiration on the antique work of cob-webs. Printed books he contemns as a novelty of this latter age; but a Manuscript he pores on everlastingly, especially if the cover be all moth-eaten, and the dust make a parenthesis between every syllable. He would give all the books in his study (which are rarities all) for one of the old Roman binding, or six lines of Tully in his own hands. His chamber is hung commonly with strange beasts' skins, and is a kind of Charnel house of bones extraordinary and his discourse upon them, if you will hear him shall last longer. His very attire is that which is the eldest out of fashion, and you may pick a criticism out of his breeches. He never looks upon himself till he is gray haired, and then he is pleased with his own antiquity. His grave does not fright him, for he has been used to sepulchres, and he likes Death the better because it gathers him to his Fathers.-Micro-Cosmographie.

OWEN FELLTHAM
1602 (?)-1677

A DUTCH HOUSE

WHEN you are entered the house the first thing you encounter is a looking-glass. No question but a true emblem of politic hospitality; for though it reflects

yourself in your own figure, 'tis yet no longer than while you are there before it. When you are gone once, it flatters the next comer, without the least remembrance that you ere were there.

The next are the vessels of the house marshalled about the room like watchmen. All as neat as if you were in a citizens' wives' cabinet: for unless it be themselves, they let none of God's creatures lose anything of their native beauty.

Their houses, especially in their cities, are the best eye beauties of their country. For cost and sight they far exceed our English, but they want their magnificence. Their lining is yet more rich than their outside; not in hangings but in pictures, which even the poorest are there furnished with. Not a cobbler but has his toys for ornament. Were the knacks of all their houses set together, there would not be such another Bartholomew Fair in Europe.

Whatsoever their estates be, their house must be fair. Therefore from Amsterdam they have banished seacoal, lest it soil their buildings, of which the statelier sort are sometimes sententious, and in the front carry some conceit of the owner. As to give you a taste in these:

Christus Adjutor Meus ;

Hoc abdicato Perenne Quæro ;

Hic Medio tutius Itur.

Every door seems studded with diamonds. The nails and hinges hold a constant brightness, as if rust there were not a quality incident to iron. Their houses they keep cleaner than their bodies; their bodies than their souls. Go to one you shall find the andirons shut up in network. At a second the warming-pan muffled in Italian cut-work. At a third the sconce clad in cambric. -A Brief Character of the Low Countries.