THE COMPLETE ANGLER 115 



Or a leverock build her nest : 



Here, give my weary spirits rest, 



And raise my low-pitch'd thoughts above 



Earth, or what poor mortals love : 



Thus, free from lawsuits and the noise 



Of princes' courts, I would rejoice ; 



Or, with my Bryan * and a book, 



Loiter long days near Shawford brook ; f 



There sit by him, and eat my meat ; 



There see the sun both rise and set ; 



There bid good morning to next day ; 



There meditate my time away ; 

 And angle on, and beg to have 

 A quiet passage to a welcome grave. 



When I had ended this composure, I left this place, and 

 saw a brother of the angle sit under that honeysuckle 

 hedge, one that will prove worth your acquaintance : I 

 sat down by him, and presently we met with an acci- 

 dental piece of merriment, which I will relate to you ; for 

 it rains still. 



On the other side of this very hedge sat a gang of 

 gipsies, and near to them sat a gang of beggars. The 

 gipsies were then to divide all the money that had been 

 got that week, either by stealing linen or poultry, or by 

 fortune-telling, or legerdemain, or indeed by any other 

 sleights and secrets belonging to their mysterious govern- 



Walton) a favourite one ; for, some years after the Restoration, the 

 three first words of it were become a phrase. The affected writer 

 of the Life of the Lord Keeper Guildford, page 212 of that book, 

 speaking of Sir Job Charleton, then chief-justice of Chester, says, 

 he wanted to speak with the king ; and went to Whitehall ; where, 

 returning from his walk in St. James's Park, he must pass : and there 

 he sat him down " like hermit poor." H. 



* A friend conjectures this to be the name of his favourite dog. H. 



t Shawford Brook, part of the River Sow, running through the very 

 land which Walton bequeathed in his will to the corporation of 

 Stafford to find coals for the poor : the right of fishery in which 

 attaches to this little estate. The house, described by Walton in his 

 will, is now divided. The brook is a beautiful winding stream, and 

 the situation such as would be likely to create admiration in a mind 

 like Walton's. H. 



