rns, and those he pays ere he be sued. He is a flattering
glass to conceal age and wrinkles. He is mountain's monkey that,
climbing a tree and skipping from bough to bough, gives you back his
face; but come once to the top, he holds his nose up into the wind and
shows you his tail. Yet all this gay glitter shows on him as if the sun
shone in a puddle, for he is a small wine that will not last; and when
he is falling, he goes of himself faster than misery can drive him.

A FAIR AND HAPPY MILKMAID

Is a country wench, that is so far from making herself beautiful by art,
that one look of hers is able to put all face physic out of countenance.
She knows a fair look is but a dumb orator to commend virtue, therefore
minds it not. All her excellences stand in her so silently, as if they
had stolen upon her without her knowledge. The lining of her apparel
(which is herself) is far better than outsides of tissue; for though she
be not arrayed in the spoil of the silk-worm, she is decked in
innocency, a far better wearing. She doth not, with lying long a-bed,
spoil both her complexion and conditions; Nature hath taught her too
immoderate sleep is rust to the soul; she rises therefore with
chanticleer, her dame's cock, and at night makes lamb her curfew. In
milking a cow and straining the teats through her fingers, it seems that
so sweet a milk-press makes the milk the whiter or sweeter; for never
came almond glove or aromatic ointment off her palm to taint it. The
golden ears of corn fall and kiss her feet when she reaps them, as if
they wished to be bound and led prisoners by the same hand that felled
them. Her breath is her own, which scents all the year long of June,
like a new made haycock. She makes her hand hard with labour, and her
heart soft with pity; and when winter's evenings fall early (sitting at
her merry wheel) she sings a defiance to the giddy wheel of fortune. She
doth all things with so sweet a grace, it seems ignorance will not
suffer her to do ill, because her mind is to do well. She bestows her
year's wages at next fair; and, in choosing her garments, counts no
bravery in the world like decency. The garden and beehive are all her
physic and chirurgery, and she lives the longer for it. She dares go
alone and unfold sheep in the night, and fears no manner of ill because
she means none; yet, to say truth, she is never alone, for she is still
accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short