CHAP. IV.] 



THE THIRD DAT. 



115 



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 expressed it, 



I was for that time lifted above earth ; 

 And possest joys not promised 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, 

 which was made by Sir Walter 

 Raleigh in his younger days. 



They were old-fashioned poe- 

 try, but choicely good; I think, 

 much better than the strong 

 lines which are now in fashion 

 in this critical age. Look yon- 

 der ! on my word, yonder, they 

 both be a milking again. I will 

 give her the chub, and persuade 

 them to sing those two songs 

 to us. 



G-od speed you, good woman ! I have been a fishing ; and 



Sir Walter Kaleigh. 



1 Christopher Marlow was a poet 01 no small eminence in his day, as 

 may be inferred from the frequent mention of him in the writings of his 

 contemporaries. He was some time a student at Cambridge, and after that 

 an actor on, and a writer for, the stage. There are extant of his writings five 

 tragedies, and a poem, that bears his name, entitled "Hero and Leander " 

 possibly a translation from Musseus which, he not living to complete, it 

 was finished by Chapman. The song here mentioned (see further mention 

 of it in note, p. 119) is printed, with his name to it, in a collection entitled 

 "England's Helicon," 4to. 1600, as is also the Answer, here said to be 

 written by Sir Walter Raleigh, but there 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 man, his 



I 2 



