She makes her hand hard with labor, and her heart soft with
pity; and when winter evenings fall early, sitting at her merry wheel,
she sings defiance to the giddy wheel of fortune. 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 bee-hive are all her physic and
surgery, 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, but is still accompanied with old
songs, honest thoughts and prayers, but short ones. Thus lives she, and
all her care is she may die in the spring-time, to have store of flowers
stuck upon her winding-sheet."
England was still merry England in the times of good Queen Bess, and
rang with old songs, such as kept this milkmaid company; songs, said
Bishop Joseph Hall, which were "sung to the wheel and sung unto the
pail." Shakspere loved their simple minstrelsy; he put some of them into
the mouth of Ophelia, and scattered snatches of them through his plays,
and wrote others like them himself:
Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song.
That old and antique song we heard last night.
Methinks it did relieve my passion much,
More than light airs and recollected terms
Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times.
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