196 The Complete Angler 



Our floods' queen, Thames, for ships and swans is crown'd; 



And stately Severn for her shore is prais'd ; 

 The crystal Trent, for fords and fish renown'd; 



And Avon's fame to Albion's cliffs is rais'd. 



Carlegion Chester vaunts her holy Dee ; 



York many wonders of her Ouse can tell ; 

 The Peak, her Dove, whose banks so fertile be, 



And Kent will say her Medway doth excel : 



Cotswold commends her Isis to the Tame ; 



Our northern borders boast of Tweed's fair flood ; 

 Our Western parts extol their Willy's fame, 



And the old Lea brags of the Danish blood. 



These observations are out of learned Dr. Heylin, 

 and my old deceased friend, Michael Dray ton ; and 

 because you say you love such discourses as these, 

 of rivers, and fish, and fishing, I love you the batter, 

 and love the more to impart them to you. Never- 

 theless, scholar, if I should begin but to name the 

 several sorts of strange fish that are usually taken 

 in many of those rivers that run into the sea, I 

 might beget wonder in you, or unbelief, or both: 

 and yet I will venture to tell you a real truth con- 

 cerning one lately dissected by Dr. Wharton, a man 

 of great learning and experience, and of equal 

 freedom to communicate it ; one that loves me and 

 my art; one to whom I have been beholden for 

 many of the choicest observations that I have im- 

 parted to you. This good man, that dares do any- 

 thing rather than tell an untruth, did, I say, tell me 

 he had lately dissected one strange fish, and he thus 

 described it to me : 



"This fish was almost a yard broad, and twice 

 that length ; his mouth wide enough to receive, or 

 take into it, the head of a man ; his stomach, seven 

 or eight inches broad. He is of a slow motion ; and 

 usually lies or lurks close in the mud ; and has a 

 moveable string on his head, about a span or near 

 unto a quarter of a yard long ; by the moving of 



