hostess has two beds, and I know you and I may have the best; we'll rejoice with my brother Peter and his friend, tell tales, or sing ballads, or make a catch, or find some harmless sport to content us and pass away a little time, without offense to God or man. VEN. A match, good master, let's go to that house, for the linen looks white and smelis of lavender, and I long to 10 lie in a pair of sheets that smells so. Let's be going, good master, for I am hungry again with fishing. Pisc. Nay, stay a little, good scholar. As I left this place, and entered into the next field, a second pleasure entertained me; 't was a handsome milkmaid, that had not yet attained so much age and 5 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 sang like a nightingale her voice was good, and the ditty fitted for it: it was that smooth song which was made by Kit Marlow, now at least fifty years ago; and the milkmaid's mother sang an answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh in his They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good; I think much better than the strong lines that are now in fashion in this critical age. Look yonder; 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 I caught my last trout with a worm; now 15 younger days. 30 Look! under that broad beech-tree I sat down, when I was last this way a-fishing. And the birds in the adjoining grove seemed to have a friendly con- 35 tention with an echo, whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow tree, near to the brow of that primrose hill. There I sat viewing the silver streams glide silently towards their center, the tem- 40 pestuous 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 leap- 45 ing 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 50 sights had so fully possessed my soul with content, that I thought, as the poet hath happily expressed it, I was for that time lifted above earth, And possessed joys not promised in my birth. us. God speed you, good woman! I have been a-fishing and am going to Bleak Hall to my bed, and having caught more fish than will sup myself and friend, I will bestow this upon you and your daughter, for I use to sell none. MILK-W. Marry, God requite you, sir, and we'll eat it cheerfully; and if you come this way a-fishing two months hence, a grace of God, I'll give you a syllabub of new verjuice in a new-made hay-cock for it, and my Maudlin shall sing you one of her best ballads; for she and I both love all anglers, they be such honest, civil, quiet men: in the meantime will you drink a draft of red cow's milk? you shall have it freely. Pisc. No, I thank you; but, I pray, do us a courtesy that shall stand you and your daughter in nothing, and yet we will think ourselves still something in your debt; it is but to sing us a song that was sung by your daughter when I last passed over this meadow, about eight or nine days since. MILK-W. What song was it, I pray? Was it Come, shepherds, deck your heads? or, As at noon Dulcina rested? or, Phillida flouts me? or, Chevy Chase? or, Johnny Armstrong? or, Troy Town? PISC. No, it is none of those; it is a 55 song that your daughter sang the first part, and you sang the answer to it. MILK-W. Oh, I know it now. I learned it the first part in my golden age, when I was about the age of my poor daughter; and the latter part, which indeed fits me best now, but two or three 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 her winding-sheet.' years ago, when the cares of the world 5 good store of flowers stuck round about began to take hold of me: but you shall, God willing, hear them both, and sung as well as we can, for we both love anglers. Come, Maudlin, sing the first part to the gentlemen with a merry heart, and I'll 10 sing the second, when you have done. THE MILKMAID'S MOTHER'S ANSWER If all the world and love were young, But time drives flocks from field to fold, The flowers do fade, and wanton fields 25 Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, 30 35 40 Thy belt of straw and ivy-buds, What should we talk of dainties then, But could youth last and love still breed, woman; I PISC. Well sung, good thank you. I'll give you another dish of fish one of these days, and then beg another song of you. Come, scholar, let Maudlin alone; do not you offer to spoil her voice. Look, yonder comes mine hostess, to call us to supper. How now? Is my brother Peter come? HOST. Yes, and a friend with him. they are both glad to hear that you are in these parts, and long to see you, and long to be at supper, for they be very hungry. THOMAS FULLER (1608–1661) Fuller retained more than his contemporaries of the Elizabethan quaintness and humor. Although a clergyman and an army chaplain during the Civil War, he was not a keen partisan, and kept his position at Waltham Abbey under the Commonwealth. At the Restoration he was made chaplain to the king, and would have become a bishop, if he had not been suddenly carried off by a fever. His chief works were The Holy State (1642) and The Worthies of England, published the year after his death. THE LIFE OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE Francis Drake was born nigh South to of his ship, that he might lawfully recover in value of the king of Spain, and repair his losses upon him anywhere else. The case was clear in sea-divinity; and 5 few are such infidels, as not to believe doctrines which make for their own profit. Whereupon Drake, though a poor private man, hereafter undertook revenge himself on so mighty a monarch; who, as not contented that the sun riseth and setteth in his dominions, may seem to desire to make all his own where he shineth. And now let us see how a dwarf, standing on the mount of God's providence, may prove an overmatch for a giant. After two or three several voyages to gain intelligence in the West Indies, and some prizes taken, at last he effectually set forward from Plymouth with two ships, the one of seventy, the other twenty-five tons, and seventy-three men and boys in both. He made with all speed and secrecy to Nombre de Dios, as loath to put the town to too much charge (which he knew they would willingly bestow) in providing beforehand for his entertainment; which city was then the granary of the West Indies, wherein the golden harvest brought from Panama was hoarded up till it could be conveyed into Spain. They came hard aboard the shore, and lay quiet all night, intending to attempt the town in the dawning of the day. For some time he continued his master's profession; but the narrow seas 25 were a prison for so large a spirit, born for greater undertakings. He soon grew weary of his bark; which would scarce go alone, but as it crept along by the shore: wherefore, selling it, he unfor- 30 tunately ventured most of his estate with Captain John Hawkins into the West Indies, in 1567; whose goods were taken by the Spaniards at St. John de Ulva, and he himself scarce escaped with life: the 35 king of Spain being so tender in those parts, that the least touch doth wound him; and so jealous of the West Indies, his wife, that willingly he would have none look upon her: he therefore used 40 the town: and when men's heads are them with the greater severity. Drake was persuaded by the minister But he was forced to alter his resolution, and assault it sooner; for he heard his men muttering amongst themselves of the strength and greatness of once fly-blown with buzzes of suspicion, the vermin multiply instantly, and one jealousy begets another. Wherefore, he raised them from their nest before they had hatched their fears; and, to put away those conceits, he persuaded them it was day-dawning when the moon rose, and instantly set on the town, and won it, being unwalled. In the market-place the Spaniards saluted them with a volley of shot; Drake returned their greeting with a flight of arrows, the best and 10 ancient English compliment, which drave their enemies away. Here Drake received a dangerous wound, though he valiantly concealed it a long time; knowing if his heart stooped, his men's would 15 whose direction he used in the coasts fall, and loath to leave off the action, wherein if so bright an opportunity once setteth, it seldom riseth again. But at length his men forced him to return to his ship, that his wound might be 20 dressed; and this unhappy accident defeated the whole design. Thus victory sometimes slips through their fingers who have caught it in their hands. wealth, and burnt at the House of Crosses above two hundred thousand pounds' worth of Spanish merchandise, he returned with honor and safety into Eng5 land, and, some years after (December 13th, 1577) undertook that his famous voyage about the world, most accurately described by our English authors: and yet a word or two thereof will not be amiss. But his valor would not let him give 25 over the project as long as there was either life or warmth in it; and therefore, having received intelligence from the negroes called Symerons, of many mules'-lading of gold and silver, which 30 was to be brought from Panama, he, leaving competent numbers to man his ships, went on land with the rest, and bestowed himself in the woods by the way as they were to pass, and so inter- 35 cepted and carried away an infinite mass of gold. As for the silver, which was not portable over the mountains, they digged holes in the ground and hid it therein. 40 There want not those who love to beat down the price of every honorable action, though they themselves never mean to be chapmen. These cry up Drake's fortune herein to cry down his valor; 45 as if this his performance were nothing, wherein a golden opportunity ran his head, with his long forelock, into Drake's hands beyond expectation. But, certainly, his resolution and unconquer-50 able patience deserved much praise, to adventure on such a design, which had in it just no more probability than what was enough to keep it from being impossible. Yet I admire not so much at 55 all the treasure he took, as at the rich and deep mine of God's providence. Having now full freighted himself with Setting forward from Plymouth, he bore up for Cabo-verd, where, near to the island of St. Jago, he took prisoner Nuno de Silva, an experienced Spanish pilot, of Brazil and Magellan Straits, and afterwards safely landed him at Guatulco in New Spain. Hence they took their course to the Island of Brava; and hereabouts they met with those tempestuous winds whose only praise is, that they continue not an hour, in which time they change all the points of the compass. Here they had great plenty of rain, poured (not, as in other places, as it were out of sieves, but) as out of spouts, so that a butt of water falls down in a place; which, notwithstanding, is but a courteous injury in that hot climate far from land, and where otherwise fresh water cannot be provided. Then cutting the Line, they saw the face of that heaven which earth hideth from us, but therein only three stars of the first greatness, the rest few and small compared to our hemisphere; as if God, on purpose, had set up the best and biggest candles in that room wherein his civilest guests are entertained. Sailing the south of Brazil, he afterwards passed the Magellan Straits (August 20th, 1578) and then entered Mare Pacificum [the Pacific Ocean], came to the southernmost land at the height of 55% latitudes; thence directing his course northward, he pillaged many Spanish towns, and took rich prizes of high value in the kingdoms of Chili, Peru, and New Spain. Then, bending eastwards, he coasted China, and the Moluccas, where, by the king of Terrenate, a true gentleman Pagan, he was most honorably entertained. The king told them, they and he were all of one religion in this respect, that they believed not in gods made of stocks and stones, as did the Portugals. He furnished them also with all necessaries that they wanted. their envious pride was above their covetousness, who of set purpose did blur the fair copy of his performance, because they would not take pains to write after I pass by his next West-Indian voyage (1585), wherein he took the cities of St. Jago, St. Domingo, Carthagena, and St. Augustine in Florida; as also his service performed in 1588, wherein he, with many others, helped to the waning of that half-moon, which sought to govern all the motion of our sea. I haste to his last voyage. On January 9th following (1579), his ship, having a large wind and a smooth sea, ran aground on a dangerous shoal, and struck twice on it; knocking twice at the door of death, which, no doubt, 5 it. had opened the third time. Here they stuck, from eight o'clock at night till four the next afternoon, having ground too much, and yet too little to land on; and water too much, and yet too little 10 to sail in. Had God (who, as the wise man saith, 'holdeth the winds in his fist,' Prov. xxx. 4) but opened his little finger, and let out the smallest blast, they had undoubtedly been cast away; 15 but there blew not any wind all the while. Then they, conceiving aright that the best way to lighten the ship was, first, to ease it of the burden of their sins by true repentance, humbled them- 20 selves, by fasting, under the hand of God. Afterwards they received the communion, dining on Christ in the sacrament, expecting no other than to sup with him in heaven. Then they cast out 25 of their ship six great pieces of ordnance, threw overboard as much wealth as would break the heart of a miser to think on it, with much sugar, and packs of spices, making a caudle of the sea round 30 about. Then they betook themselves to their prayers, the best lever at such a dead lift indeed; and it pleased God, that the wind, formerly their mortal enemy, became their friend; which, changing 35 from the starboard to the larboard of the ship, and rising by degrees, cleared them off to the sea again,- for which they returned unfeigned thanks to Almighty God. Queen Elizabeth, in 1595, perceiving that the only way to make the Spaniard a cripple forever, was to cut his sinews of war in the West Indies, furnished Sir Francis Drake, and Sir John Hawkins, with six of her own ships, besides twenty-one ships and barks of their own providing, containing in all two thousand five hundred men and boys, for some service on America. But, alas! this voyage was marred before begun. For, so great preparations being too big for a cover, the king of Spain knew of it, and sent a caraval of adviso to the West Indies; so that they had intelligence three weeks before the fleet set forth of England, either to fortify or remove their treasure; whereas, in other of Drake's voyages, not two of his own men knew whither he went; and managing such a design is like carrying a mine in war,- if it hath any vent, all is spoiled. Besides, Drake and Hawkins, being in joint commission, hindered each other. The latter took 40 himself to be inferior rather in success than skill; and the action was unlike to prosper when neither would follow, and both could not handsomely go abreast. It vexed old Hawkins, that his counsel was not followed, in present sailing to America, but that they spent time in vain in assaulting the Canaries; and the grief that his advice was slighted, say some, was the cause of his death. Others impute it to the sorrow he took for the taking of his bark called Francis,' which five Spanish frigates had intercepted. But when the same heart hath two mortal wounds given it together, it is hard to say which of them killeth. By the Cape of Good Hope and west of Africa, he returned safe into England, and (November 3rd, 1580) landed at Plymouth (being almost the first of those that made a thorough light 45 through the world), having, in his whole voyage, though a curious searcher after the time, lost one day through the variation of several climates. He feasted the queen in his ship at Dartford, who 50 knighted him for his service. Yet it grieved him not a little, that some prime courtiers refused the gold he offered them, as gotten by piracy. Some of them would have been loath to have been 55 told, that they had aurum Tholosanum [gold of Spain] in their own purses. Some think, that they did it to show that the Drake continued his course for Porto Rico; and, riding within the road, a shot |