Page:An Old English Home and Its Dependencies.djvu/214

 In the "Character of a Ballad-monger," in Whimzies, 1631, we find: "Stale ballad news, cashiered the city, must now ride fast for the country, where it is no less admired than a giant in a pageant: till at last it grows so common there, too, as every poor milkmaid can chant and chirp it under her cow, which she useth as a harmless charm to make her let down her milk."

In Beaumont and Fletcher's play, The Coxcomb, Nan, the Milkmaid, says:

Who does not remember old Isaac Walton and his merry ballad-singing dairy-maid?

Pepys, in his Diary, 13th October, 1662, writes: "With my father took a melancholy walk to Portholme, seeing the country-maids milking their cows there, they being there now