chap, v.] THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 117 



Prescribes, esteemed be 

 Advantage got ? 

 If th' prayer be good, the commoner the better, 

 Prayer in the Church's words, as well 

 As sense, of all prayers bears the bell. 



CH. HARVIE. 



And now, Scholar, I think it will be time to re- 

 pair to our angle-rods, which we left in the water, 

 to fish for themselves, and you shall choose which 

 shall be yours ; and it is an even lay one of them 

 catches. 



And let me tell you, this kind of fishing with a 

 dead-rod, and laving night-hooks, are like putting 

 money to use ; for they both work for the owners, 

 when they do nothing but sleep, or eat, or rejoice ; 

 as you know we have done this last hour, and sate 

 as quietly and as free from cares under this syca- 

 more, as Virgil's Tityrus and his Melibceus did under 

 their broad beech-tree. No life, my honest Scho- 

 lar, no life so happy and so pleasant, as the life of 

 a well-governed Angler ; for when the lawyer is 

 swallowed up with business, and the statesman 

 is preventing or contriving plots, then we sit on 

 cowslip-banks, hear the birds sing, and possess 

 ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver 

 streams, which we now see glide so quietly by us. 

 Indeed, my good Scholar, we may say of Angling, 

 as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries ; " Doubtless 

 " God could have made a better berry, but doubt- 

 " less God never did : " and so, if I might be judge. 



