'T has ever been the top of my desires,
The utmost height to which my wish aspires,
That Heaven would bless me with a small estate,
Where I might find a close obscure retreat;
There, free from noise and all ambitious ends,
Enjoy a few choice books, and fewer friends,
Lord of myself, accountable to none,
But to my conscience, and my God alone:
There live unthought of, and unheard of die,
And grudge mankind my very memory.
But since the blessing is, I find, too great
For me to wish for, or expect of fate;
Yet, maugre all the spite of destiny,
My thoughts, and actions are, and shall be, free.
A certain author, very grave and sage,
This story tells; no matter what the page.
One time, as they walked forth ere break of day,
The wolf and dog encountered on the way:
kinswoman, or a crackt chambermaid to have and to hold during the time of his life.' A writer in Notes and Queries explains the term 'to the halves' as meaning inadequate, as we should say 'half and half measures.' Bishop Hall gives a very curious sketch in his Satires of these trencher chaplains:—
’A gentle squire would gladly entertaine
Into his house some trencher-chapelaine,
Some willing man, that might instruct his sons,
And that would stand to good conditions.
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,
While his young master lieth o'er his head;
Second, that he do, upon no default,
Never to sit above the salt;
Third, that he never change his trencher twice;
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies.
Sit bare at meals, and one half rise and wait;
Last, that he never his young master beat
But he must ask his mother to define
How many jerks she would his breech should line;
All these observed, he could contented be,
To give five markes, and winter liverie.'
The custom of marrying off the domestic chaplain to the lady's waiting-woman is alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher in the Woman Hater, Act iii., so. 3.
