With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deare
Towards his cottage gently home to guide;
His aged wife there made her homely cheare,
Yet welcomde her, and plast her by her side.
The princesse dond a poore pastoraes geare,
A kerchiefe course vpon her head she tide;
But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse)
Were such as ill beseem'd a shepherdesse.
18.
Not those rude garments could obscure, and hide
The heau'nly beautie of her angel's face,
Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide,
Or ought disparag'de, by those labours bace;
Her little flocks to pasture would she guide,
And milke her goates, and in their folds them place,
Both cheese and butter could she make, and frame
Her selfe to please the shepherd and his dame.
[Footnote 82: Preface to his Fables. Dr. J.]
[Footnote 83: This speech has been retrieved, from a paper printed at that time, by the writers of the Parliamentary History. Dr.J.]
[Footnote 84: Parliamentary History, vol. xii. Dr. J.]
[Footnote 85: Life of Waller prefixed to an edition of his works, published in 1773, by Percival Stockdale. C.]
[Footnote 86: Sir John Davies, entitled, Nosce Teipsum. This oracle expounded in two elegies; 1. Of Humane Knowledge: 2. Of the Soule of Man and the Immortalitie thereof, 1599. R.]
[Footnote 87: It has been conjectured that our poet was either son or grandson of Charles, third son of sir John Stepney, the first baronet of that family. See Granger's History, vol. ii. p. 396. Edit. 8vo. 1775. Mr. Cole says, the poet's father was a grocer. Cole's manuscripts, in Brit. Mus. C.]