i 



Who on their backs as many colours show, 

 As heav'nly Iris on her painted bow. 

 With these the smelt and smaller turbot place, 

 And tench, the fav'rites of the vulgar race, 

 With slipp'ry eels which may be caught with ease 

 Descending from the rivers to the seas; 

 For as each year the wand'ring swallow flies 

 The southern suns and more indulgent skies; 

 So when rough northern blasts the rivers freeze, 

 The tender eel, of cold impatient, flees 

 To the warm sands and caverns of the seas; * 

 And thence returns in summer as before, 

 To the cool streams and shelter of the shore. 

 Chuse then a place to practise your deceit, 

 Where rocks reduce the river to a strait, 

 So that the stream may flow, when thus confin'd, 

 With force to turn a mill and corn to grind: 

 Then near the flood gates in a narrow space, 

 Hard of access, with reeds enclose a place; 

 The bending osiers will with ease allow 

 The stream retiring thro' the chinks to flow; 



His tail I grasp with eager hand, 



And swing, with joy, my prize on land." 



* The tackle must be adapted to the season, but the angler may remain 

 indifferent as to the wind j " so (as one instructor gravely adds) that he 

 can cast his bait into the river." The planetary influence upon fish is alluded 

 to by Gower, in the Confessione Amantis, 1554. 



<( Benethe all other stont the moone, 



The whiche hath with the sea to doone, 



Of floodes highe, and ebbes lowe, 



Vpon his chaunge it shall be knowe, 



And euery fisshe, whiche hath a shelle, 



Mote in his gouernance dvvelle, 



To wexe and wane in his degree, 



As by the moone a man mai see.'* 



But, 



