

MAIDS AND MEADOWS. 303 



from the beginning to the end, upon the face of the ground, yet in the bot- 

 tom I did likewise levell it to avoyde error. 



" For the breadth and depth, my proportion is ten foote broad, and four 

 foote deep ; unless in the beginning, to fetch the water to my drowning 

 grounds, I ran it some half mile eight foote deep, and in some places six- 

 teen foote broad. All the rest of the course, for two miles and a half in 

 length, according to my former proportion. When my worke began in the 

 eye of the country to carry a shew of profit, it pleased many out of their 

 courtesie to give it commendations, and applaud the invention." 



The author then makes a considerable digression, to account 

 for a delay in his proceedings, which was occasioned by processes 

 issued against him from the courts of Star Chamber, Chancery, 

 and Wardes, to compel him to deliver his niece and ward into 

 their custody. 



" These courts, 7 ' he observes, " bred more white haires in my head in one 

 year than all my wet-shod water-works did in sixteen. So leaving my 

 wanton ward in London, in the custody of a precisian or puritan taylor, 

 who would not endure to heare one of his journeymen sweare by the cross 

 ol his shears ; so full was he of sanctity in deceipt. But the first news I 

 heard was, that he had married my "Welch niece to his Englis nephew ; and 

 at my return, I was driven to take his word, that he was neither privy to 

 the contract, nor the marriage." 



Mr. Vaughan next gives the following directions for carrying 

 this plan into effect : 



" Having prepared your drowning course, be very careful that all the 

 ground subject to the same, whether meadow, pasture, or arable, be as plain 

 as any garden-plotte, and without furrows. Then follows your attendance 

 in flood-times : see that you suffer not your flood water by negligence to 

 pass away into the brooke, river, and sea, but by your sluice command it 

 to your grounds, and continue it playing thereon so long as it appears 

 muddy. In the beginning of March clear your ground of cold water, and 

 keep it as dry as a child under the hands of a dainty nurse ; observing gen- 

 erally that sandy ground will endure ten times more water than the clay. 

 A day or two before you mow, if sufficient showers have not qualified the 



