CHAP. IV. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 65 



near to the brow of that primrose-hill. There I sat view- 

 ing the silver streams glide silently towards their centre, 

 the tempestuous sea ; yet sometimes opposed by rugged 

 roots and pebble-stones, which broke their waves, and 

 turned them into foam. And sometimes I beguiled time 

 by viewing the harmless lambs ; some leaping securely in 

 the cool shade, whilst others sported themselves in the 

 cheerful sun ; and saw others craving comfort from the 

 swollen udders of their bleating dams. As I thus sat, 

 these and other sights had so fully possest my soul with 

 content, that I thought as the poet has happily exprest it, 



I was for that time lifted above earth ; 

 And possest joys not promis'd in my birth. 



As I left this place, and entered into the next field, a 

 second pleasure entertained me ; 'twas a handsome milk- 

 maid, 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 ; it was that smooth song 

 which was made by Kit Marlow, 1 now at least fifty years 

 ago. And the milk-maid's mother sung an answer to it, 



(1) Christopher Mnrlow was a poet of DO small eminence in his day, as may 

 be inferred from the frequent mention of him in the writings of his contempo- 

 raries. He was some time a student at Cambridge, urn 1 , after that, an actor on, 

 and writer for the stage. There are extant, of his writing, five Tragedies; and 

 . Poem that bears his name, entitled, Hero and Leander (possibly a translation 

 rrom Musaeus) which, he not living to complete it, was finished by Chapman. 

 The Song here mentioned is printed, with his name to it, in a Collection enti- 

 tled England's Helicon, Ho. l600, as is also the Answer, here said to be written 

 by Sir Walter Raleigh, but theie subscribed " Ignoto." Of Marlow it is said, 

 that he was the author of divers atheistical and blasphemous discourses; and 

 that in a quarrel with a serving rmu, his rival in a connection with a lewd 

 woman, he received a stab with a dagger, and shortly after died of the stroke. 

 Wood (from whom. At hen. Of oil. Vol. I. 338. and also from Beard's Theatre 

 of God's Judgments, this account is taken) says, that the end of this person 

 was noted by the Precisians ; but surely the Precisians are to be acquitted of 

 all blame, as having done nothing, more than asserted God's moral government 

 of the world, by noting in this instance, one example out of many, of the 

 natural tendency of impiety and profligacy to destruction and infamy. 



