isguise:
But I assur'd him on my honest word
That I was no disguised Knight or Lord.
He told me then that I must goe sixe miles
T' a Justice there, Sir John or else Sir Giles:
I told him I was lothe to goe so farre,
And he told me he would my journey barre.
Thus what with Fleas and with the seuerall prates
Of th' officer, and his _Ass_-sociats
We arose to goe, but Fortune bade us stay:
The Constable had stolne our oares away,
And borne them thence a quarter of a mile
Quite through a Lane beyond a gate and stile;
And hid them there to hinder my depart,
For which I wish'd him hang'd with all my heart.
A plowman (for us) found our Oares againe,
Within a field well fil'd with Barley Graine.
Then madly, gladly, out to sea we thrust,
'Gainst windes and stormes, and many a churlish Gust,
By _Kingston_ Chappelle and by _Rushington_,
By _Little-Hampton_ and by _Middleton_.

[Sidenote: THE MILLER AND SWEET DEATH]

Highdown, above Goring, is a good hill in itself, conical in shape, as a
hill should be according to the exacting ideas of childhood, with a
sweeping view of the coast and the Channel; but its fame as a resort of
holiday makers comes less from its position and height than from the
circumstance that John Oliver is buried upon it. John Oliver was the
miller of Highdown Hill. When not grinding corn he seems to have busied
himself with thoughts upon the necessary end of all things, to such an
extent that his meditations on the subject gradually became a mania.
His coffin was made while he was still a young man, and it remained
under his bed until its time was ripe, fitted--to bring it to a point of
preparedness unusual even with the Chinese, those masters of
anticipatory obsequies--with wheels, which the miller, I doubt not,
regularly oiled. John Oliver did not stop there. Having his coffin
comfortably at hand, he proceeded to erect his tomb. This was built in
1766, with tedious verses upon it from the miller's pen; while in an
alcove near the tomb was a mechanical arrangement of death's-heads which
might keep the miller's thoughts from straying, when, as with Dr.
Johnson's philosopher, cheerfulness would creep in.

The miller lived in the company of his coffin, his tomb, and his
_mementi mori_, until 1793, when at the age of eighty-four his hopes
were realised. Those who love death die old.

Between two and thr