THE COMPLETE ANGLER 35 



And first to pass by the miraculous cures of our known 

 baths, how advantageous is the sea for our daily traffic, 

 without which we could not now subsist ! How does it 

 not only furnish us with food and physic for the bodies, 

 but with such observations for the mind as ingenious 

 persons would not want ! 



How ignorant had we been of the beauty of Florence, 

 of the monuments, urns, and rarities that yet remain 

 in and near unto old and new Rome, so many as it is said 

 will take up a year's time to view, and afford to each of 

 them but a convenient consideration ! And therefore 

 it is not to be wondered at, that so learned and devout 

 a father as St. Jerome, after his wish to have seen 

 Christ in the flesh, and to have heard St. Paul preach, 

 makes his third wish, to have seen Rome in her glory ; 

 and that glory is not yet all lost, for what pleasure is 

 it to see the monuments of Livy, the choicest of the 

 historians ; of Tully, the best of orators ; and to see 

 the bay trees that now grow out of the very tomb of 

 Virgil ! These, to any that love learning, must be 

 pleasing. But what pleasure is it to a devout Christian 

 to see there the humble house in which St. Paul was 

 content to dwell, and to view the many rich statues 

 that are made in honour of his memory ! nay, to see 

 the very place in which St. Peter * and he lie buried 

 together ! These are in and near to Rome. And how 

 much more doth it please the pious curiosity of a 

 Christian to see that place on which the blessed Saviour 

 of the world was pleased to humble Himself, and to take 

 our nature upon Him, and to converse with men : to 



* The Protestants deny not only that St. Peter lies buried in the 

 Vatican, as the Romish writers assert, but that he ever was at 

 Rome. See the Hisloria Apostolica of Lud. Capellus. The sense of 

 the Protestants on this point is expressed in the following epigram, 

 alluding to the prsenomen of Peter, Simon, and to the simony 

 practised in that city 



" An Petrus fuerat Romae sub judice lis est, 

 Simonem Romae nemo fuisse negat." H. 



