‘Now that women (like the world) do grow worse and worse, I have read in a very learned authour, viz., _Poor Robin’s Almanack_, how that about two hundred and fifty years ago (as near as he could remember) there was a great sickness almost throughout the whole world, wherein there dyed Forty-five millions, eight hundred, seventy-three thousand, six hundred and ninety-two good women, and of bad women only three hundred, forty and four; by reason whereof there hath been such a scarcity of good women ever since: the whole breed of them being almost utterly extinct.’ * * * * * And so an end. But the author of this pamphlet is not alone in his satires of domestic infelicity. Here you shall see, in _The Woman to the Plow_, how these things struck our forbears. He has good ideas, this seventeenth-century versifier, but his gifts in the matter of rhyme and rhythm are all too slight:-- THE WOMAN TO THE PLOW AND THE MAN TO THE HEN-ROOST; OR, A FINE WAY TO CURE A COT QUEAN. Both men and women, listen well, A merry jest I will you tell, Betwixt a good man and his wife Who fell the other day at strife. He chid her for her huswivery, And she found fault as well as he. He says:-- ‘Sith you and I cannot agree, Let’s change our work’--‘Content,’ quoth she. ‘My wheel and distaff, here, take thou, And I will drive the cart and plow.’ This was concluded ’twixt them both: To cart and plow the good wife goeth. The good man he at home doth tarry, To see that nothing doth miscarry. An apron he before him put: Judge:--Was not this a handsome slut? He fleets the milk, he makes the cheese; He gropes the hens, the ducks, and geese; He brews and bakes as well’s he can; But not as it should be done, poor man. As he did make his cheese one day Two pigs their bellies broke with whey: Nothing that he in hand did take Did come to good. Once he did bake, And burnt the bread as black as a stock. Another time he went to rock The cradle, and threw the child o’ the floor, And broke his nose, and hurt it sore. He went to milk, one evening-tide, A skittish cow, on the wrong side-- His pail was full of milk, God wot, She kick’d and spilt it ev’ry jot: Besides, she hit him a blow on th’ face Which was scant well in six weeks’ space. Thus was he served, and yet to dwell On more misfortunes that befell Before his apron he’d leave off, Though all his neighbours did him scoff. Now list and mark one pretty jest, ’Twill make you laugh above the rest. As he to churn his butter went One morning, with a good intent, The cot-quean fool did surely dream, For he had quite forgot the cream. He churned all day with all his might, And yet he could get no butter at night. ’Twere strange indeed, for me to utter That without cream he could make butter.