12 COMMENDATORY VERSES. 



When c you these creatures wisely choose 

 To practise on, which to your use 

 Owe their creation, and when 

 Fish from your arts do rescue men, 8 

 To plot, delude, and circumvent, 

 Ensnare, and spoil, are innocent. 

 Here by these crystal streams you may 

 Preserve a conscience clear as they ; 

 And when by sullen thoughts you find 

 Your harassed, not busied, mind 

 In sable melancholy clad, 

 Distemper'd, serious, turning sad ; 

 Hence fetch your cure, cast in your bait, 

 All anxious thoughts and cares will straight 

 Fly with such speed, they'll 7 seem to be 

 Possest with the hydrophoby. 

 The water's calmness 8 in your breast, 

 And smoothness on your brow, shall rest. 



Away with sports of charge and noise, 

 And give me cheap and silent joys, 9 

 Such as Actseon's game pursue, 

 Their fate oft makes the tale l seem true. 

 The sick or'sullen hawk, to-day, 

 Flies not ; to-morrow, quite away. 

 Patience and purse to cards and dice 

 Too oft are made a sacrifice : 

 The daughter's dower, th' inheritance 

 O' th' son, depend on one mad chance. 

 The harms and mischiefs which th' abuse 2 

 Of wine doth every day produce, 

 Make good the doctrine of the Turks, 

 That in each grape a devil lurks. 

 And by yon 3 fading sapless tree, 

 'Bout which the ivy twin'd you see, 

 His fate's foretold, who 4 fondly places 

 His bliss in woman's soft embraces. 

 All pleasures, but the Angler's, bring 

 I' the tail repentance, like a sting. 



Then on these banks 5 let me sit 6 down, 

 Free from the toilsome sword and gown ; 

 And pity those that do 7 affect 

 To conquer nations and protect. 

 My reed affords such true 8 content, 

 Delights so sweet and 9 innocent, 



VARIATIONS. 



5 Whilst. id edit. 6 y ou fishes choose to rescue men. Ibid. 



7 you'll. Ibid. 8 Then this stream's calmness. Ibid. 



9 And give me cheap and quiet )oys.Ibid. Sweeter are cheap and silent joys. 

 30? edit. l oft makes that fable true. zd edit. 



2 This, and the four following lines first appeared in the 3^ edit. 



8 that. zdedit. 4 that. Ib id. 5 this bank. /&V 6 H e . Ibid. 

 7 shall. Ibid. 8 affords me such content. Ibid. 9 so. Ibid. 



