itting at work._]

_Countess._ Fair Ida, might you choose the greatest good,
Midst all the world in blessings that abound,
Wherein, my daughter, should your liking be?

_Ida._ Not in delights, or pomp, or majesty.

_Countess._ And why?

_Ida._ Since these are means to draw the mind
From perfect good, and make true judgment blind.

_Countess._ Might you have wealth and Fortune's richest store?

_Ida._ Yet would I, might I choose, be honest-poor:
For she that sits at Fortune's feet a-low
Is sure she shall not taste a further woe,
But those that prank on top of Fortune's ball
Still fear a change, and, fearing, catch a fall.

_Countess._ Tut, foolish maid, each one contemneth need.

_Ida._ Good reason why, they know not good indeed.

_Countess._ Many, marry, then, on whom distress doth lour.

_Ida._ Yes, they that virtue deem an honest dower.
Madam, by right this world I may compare
Unto my work, wherein with heedful care
The heavenly workman plants with curious hand,
As I with needle draw each thing on land,
Even as he list: some men like to the rose
Are fashion'd fresh; some in their stalks do close,
And, born, do sudden die; some are but weeds,
And yet from them a secret good proceeds:
I with my needle, if I please, may blot
The fairest rose within my cambric plot;
God with a beck can change each worldly thing,
The poor to rich, the beggar to the king.
What, then, hath man wherein he well may boast,
Since by a beck he lives, a lour is lost?

_Countess._ Peace, Ida, here are strangers near at hand.

When Greene surrendered the attractions of sanguinary warfare and the
panoplied splendour of conquerors to treat of the pursuit of love in
peace he descended from the exclusive ranks of high-born lords and
ladies to the company of simple working folk, presenting a farmer's
daughter, winsome, loving and virtuous, and worthy to become the wife of
an earl. This aspect of the Fressingfield romance must have had a
special appeal for those of his audiences who stood outside the pale of
wealth and aristocracy. An earlier bid for their applause has been seen
in the figure of the blacksmith, Adam, whose sturdy defence of his trade
was referred to when we discussed _A Looking-Glass for London and
England_. If Greene wrote _George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield_,
and t