204 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART I. 



told you, that you also may join with me in thankfulness to the 

 Giver of every good and perfect gift, for our happiness. And 

 that our present happiness may appear to be the greater, and we 

 the more thankful for it, I will beg you to consider with me how 

 many do, even at this very time, lie under the torment of the 

 stone, the gout, and toothache ; and this we are free from. And 

 very misery that I miss is a new mercy ; and therefore let us be 

 thankful. There have been, since we met, others that have met 

 disasters of broken limbs ; some have been blasted, others thunder- 

 strucken : and we have been freed from these, and all those many 

 other miseries that threaten human nature; let us therefore rejoice 

 and be thankful. Nay, which is a far greater mercy, we are free 

 from the insupportable burthen of an accusing tormenting con- 

 science ; a misery that none can bear : and therefore let us praise 

 Him for His preventing grace, and say, Every misery that I miss 

 is a new mercy. Nay, let me tell you, there be many that have 

 forty times our estates, that would give the greatest part of it to 

 be healthful and cheerful like us, who, with the expense of a little 

 money, have eat and drunk, and laughed, and angled, and sung, 

 and slept securely ; and rose next day and cast away care, and 

 sung, and laughed, and angled again ; which are blessings rich 

 men cannot purchase with all their money. Let me tell you, 

 Scholar, I have a rich neighbour that is always so busy that he 

 lias no leisure to laugh ; the whole business of his life is to get 

 money, and more money, that he may still get more and more 

 money ; he is still drudging on, and says, that Solomon says, 

 ** The diligent hand maketh rich ; " and it is true indeed : but he 

 considers not that it is not in the power of riches to make a man 

 happy ; for it was wisely said, by a man of great observation, "That 

 there be as many miseries beyond riches as on this side of them." 

 And yet God deliver us from pinching poverty ; and grant, that 

 having a competency, we may be content and thankful. Let not 

 us repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, 

 if we see another abound with riches ; when, as God knows, the 

 cares that are the keys that keep those riches hang often so heavily 

 at the rich man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days 

 and restless nights, even when others sleep quietly. We see but 

 the outside of the rich man's happiness : few consider him to be 

 like the silkworm, that, when she seems to play, is, at the very 

 same time, spinning her own bowels, and consuming herself; and 

 this many rich men do, loading themselves with corroding cares, 

 to keep what they have, probably, unconscionably got. Let us, 



