68 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



A gown made of the finest wool 

 Which from our pretty lambs we pull ; 

 Slippers lined 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 my 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 Mny morning. 

 If these delights thy mind may move, 

 Then live with me, and be ray love.* 



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, and 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."t 



33)5 .Plilfcmato's i&otf;er's ^nstocr. 



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 care to come. 



* Dr. Warburton, in his Notes on " The Merry Wives of Windsor," ascribes 

 tiiis song to Shakspere. It is true, Sir Hugh Evans, in the third act of that 

 play, sings four lines of it ; and it occurs in a collection of poems said to be 

 Shakspere's, printed by Tho. Cotes for John Benson, 12mo, 1640, with some 

 variations. On the contrary, it is to be found, with the name of Christopher 

 Marlow to it, in " England's Helicon ;" and Walton has just said it was made 

 by Kit Marlow : the reader will judge of these evidences as he pleases. 



As to the song itself, though a beautiful one, it is not so purely pnstoral as it 

 s generally thought to be; buckles of gold, coral clasps, and amber studs 

 silver dishes and ivory tables are luxuries, and consist not with the parsimony 

 and simplicity of rural life and manners. 



5 Sir Thomas Overbury's "Character of a fair and happy Milk-maid, 1 * 

 printed with his poem entitled " The Wife," in 12mo, 1CC5. 



