I20 LITERATURE OF SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 



" I care not, I, to fish in seas — 

 Fresh rivers best my mind do please, 

 Whose sweet calm course I contemplate, 

 And seek in hfe to imitate ; 



In civil bounds I fain would keep, 



And for my past offences weep. 



" But yet, though while 1 fish, I fast, 

 I make good fortune my repast ; 

 And thereunto my friend invite. 

 In whom I more than that delight : 

 Who is more welcome to my dish 

 Than to my angle was my fish." 



The " Angler's Song," beginning with the words " Man's 

 life is but vain," &c., which occurs in the " Fourth Day," 

 appears in the first edition of The Coinplete A ngler. The 

 music, with old-fashioned diamond-headed notes, is curiously- 

 printed, that for two voices being on one page (216) in the 

 ordinary way, but that for the other voice, on the next page 

 (217), is printed upside down, so that the singers standing 

 opposite to one another, and holding the book, would each 

 have his own music properly presented to him. 



Cotton, Walton's friend and literary coadjutor, also 

 wooed the muses, though perhaps not with great success. 

 In his Retiremoit — " Stanzes Irreguliers to Mr. Izaak 

 Walton " — he shows poetic feeling, but some disregard of 

 rhythm. His favourite river, the Dove, and his desire to dwell 

 for ever quietly, is his theme. He exclaims in Dovedale : — 



" Good God ! how sweet are all things here ! 

 How beautiful the fields appear ! 

 How cleanly do we feed and lie ! 

 Lord ! what good hours do we keep ! 



How quietly we sleep ! 

 What peace ! what unanimity ! 

 How innocent from the lewd fashion 

 Is all our business, all our recreation ! 



