60 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



quietest and fittest place for contemplation, but 

 will invite an angler to it ; and this seems to be 

 maintained by the learned Peter du Moulin, who 

 in his discourse of the fulfilling of prophecies ob- 

 serves that when God intended to reveal any 

 future events or high notions to his prophets, he 

 then carried them either to the deserts or the sea- 

 shore, that having so separated them from amidst 

 the press of people and business, and the cares of 

 the world, he might settle their mind in a quiet 

 repose, and there make them fit for revelation. 



And this seems also to be intimated by the 

 children of Israel (Ps. 137), who having in a sad 

 condition banished all mirth and music from their 

 pensive hearts, and having hung up their mute 

 harps upon the willow-trees growing by the rivers 

 of Babylon, sat down upon those banks, bemoan- 

 ing the ruins of Sion, and contemplating their own 

 sad condition. 



And an ingenious Spaniard says that "rivers 

 and the inhabitants of the watery element were 

 made for wise men to contemplate, and fools to 

 pass by without consideration." And though I 

 will not rank myself in the number of the first, yet 

 give me leave to free myself from the last, by offer- 

 ing to you a short contemplation, first of rivers, 

 and then of fish ; concerning which I doubt not 

 but to give you many observations that will appear 

 very considerable : I am sure they have appeared 

 so to me, and made many an hour pass away more 

 pleasantly, as I have sat quietly on a flowery bank 



