THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 73 



Slippers lin'd choicely for the cold. 

 With buckles of the purest gold. 



A belt of straw, and ivy-buds. 

 With coral clasps and amber studs ; 

 And if these pleasures may thee move. 

 Come live with me, and be my love. 



( Thy silver dishes for thy meat. 

 As precious as the gods do eat, 

 Shall on an ivory table be 

 Prepared each day for thee and me.) 



The Shepherd-swains shall dance and sing 

 For thy delight each May-morning : 

 If these delights thy mind may move. 

 Then live with me, and be my love. 



Vex. 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 milk-maid 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 milk-maid'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."* 



* This is taken from the characters printed with Sir Thomas Over- 

 bury's " Wife," which had been often published before Walton's book. 

 Sir Thomas Overbury was the confidant of Carr, Earl of Somerset, whom 

 he dissuaded from marrying the profligate Countess of Essex, and after- 

 wards, through the means of the enraged woman, was poisoned when 

 imprisoned in the Tower on a false charge of treason ; for which crime 

 the Earl and Countess were condemned, but pardoned by the Kin^, 

 though the under agents were executed. " Overbury was the author of 

 several works in prose and verse of considerable merit, and has been com- 

 pared, in his learning, wisdom, and melancholy fate, to Germanicus." The 

 description is so beautiful that I subjoin it : — 



" A fay re and happy Milk-Maid 



Is a Countrey Wench, that is so farre from making her selfe beautifuU by 

 Art, that one looke of hers is able to put all face Physicke out of coun- 

 tenance. She knowes a fairc looke is but a Dumbe Orator to commend 

 vertue, therefore minds it not. All her excellencies stand in her so 



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