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Cheaply with loss of life : while here she stood, 

 And just prepar'd to leap into the flood, 

 Lucius approach'd, and while he held behind 

 Her flow'ry vest, that flutter' d in the wind, 

 Chang'd into fish an equal fate they bore, 

 And though transform'd in shape, yet, as before, 

 The pike of slaughter fond and fierce appears, 

 And still the trout retains her female fears ! 

 Beauty and virgin modesty remains, 

 Diversify'd with crimson tinted stains j 

 And, once the fairest nymph that trod the plain, 

 Swims fairest fish of all the finny train. * 



Not pikes alone defile the streams with blood,, 

 But over all the brethren of the flood, 

 Perpetual discord bears tyrannic sway, 

 And all the stronger on the weaker prey. 

 As among men the great the small oppress, 

 And still the same confusion and distress, 

 Which in the city and the forest reign, 

 Distract the tenants of the wat'ry plain. 

 Banish'd from earth, peace could not find a place 

 Beneath the streams, among the finny racej 

 But, since for want they otherwise would die, 

 Regard this fury with indulgent eye. 

 Why need I mention all the waste of blood, 

 Which the fierce otter causes in the flood; 

 Among the willows secretly he lies, 

 And from the shore surveys, with eager eyes, 



* " To observe the ravenous dispositioa of the pike, the sociable con- 

 dition of the trout, the various discolouring of the polypus, the strong di- 

 gestion of the porpoise, would beget in the curious surveyors of nature, much 

 admiration. And then to compare the natures of these water inhabitants 

 with oui selves, who follow, for most part, the bent of our desires, as if we 

 were estranged from that beauty which incomparably most adornes us, and 

 drenched in the leas of our ownc corruptions, which makes man most unlike 

 himselfe, by idolatrizing that which gives the greatest blemish to.hu excel- 

 lence." Braiibwalfs Nursery for Gcntrv, 1638. 



The 



