74 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



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



If all the world and love were yoitvg. 

 And truth in every Shepherd's tovfiuet 

 These pretty pleasures might me move 

 To live with thee, and be thy love. 



silently, as if they had stolne upon her without her knowledge. The 

 lining of her apparell (which is her selfe) is farre better than outsides of 

 Tisseiv ■• for though she be not arraied in the spoile of the Silke-tcorme, 

 shee IS deckt in innocency, a farre better wearing. She doth not, with 

 lying long abed, spoile both her complexion and conditions ; Nature hath 

 tauglit her, too immoderate slccpe is rust to the Soule ; she rises therefore 

 with Chauntichare her dame's cock, and at night makes the Lambe her 

 Curfew. In milking a Cow, a-straining the Teats through her fingers, it 

 seems that so sweete a Milk-presse makes the Milk the whiter or sweeter ; 

 for never came Almond Glove or Aromatique oyntment on her palme to 

 taint it. The golden eares of corne fall and kisse her feet when shee 

 reapes them, as if they wisht to be bound and led prisoners by the same 

 hand that fell'd them. Her breath is her own, which sents all the yeare 

 long of June, like a new-made Haycock. She makes her hand hard with 

 labour, and her heart soft with pitty ; and when winter evenings fall early 

 (sitting at her mery wheele) she sings a defiance to the giddy whcele of 

 Fortune. She doth all things with so sweet a grace, it seems ignorance 

 will not sufier her to doe ill, being her mind is to doe well. Shee bestowes 

 her yeere's wages at next faire ; and in chusing her garments, counts no 

 bravery i' th' world like decency. The Garden and Bee-hive are all her 

 Physick and Chyrurgerye, and shee lives the longer for't. She dares goe 

 alone, and unfold sheepe i' th' night, and feares no manner of ill, because 

 she meanes none ; yet to say truth, she is never alone, for she is still ac- 

 companied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones; 

 yet they have their efficacy, in that they are not pauled with insuing idle 

 cogitations. Lastly, her dreames are so chaste, that shee dare tell 

 them : only a Fridaic's dreame is all her superstition : that shee conceales 

 for feare of anger. Thus lives she, and all her care is that she may die in 

 the Spring-time, to have store of flowers stucke upon her winding-sheet." 

 Character 51, sign. L. 7. From the copy in the Library of Sion College, 

 London. 



* Sir Harris Nicholas says, that this reply was taken by Walton from 

 England's He/icon, where it was printed with the signature S. W. R. ; 

 but in must of the copies " Ignoto" was pasted over those initials, " which 

 tends to prove that it was not written by Raleigh ; and Walton's error 

 probably arose from using a copy in which the alteration had not been 

 made." Hannah (in his edition of Poems by Sir Henry Wotton, Sir 

 Walter Raleigh, and others, Pickering, 1S45) says that the alteration is 



