114 THE COMPLETE ANGLEH. PART I. 



And to parallel this land-rarity and to teach man- 

 kind moral faithfulness ; and to condemn those that 

 talk of religion, and yet come short of the moral faith 

 of fish and fowl, men that violate the law affirmed by 

 St. Paul, Rom. 2. 14, 15, to be writ in their hearts, and 

 which he says ? shall at the last day condemn and leave 

 them without excuse I pray hearken to what 

 ^ u Bartas sings, for the hearing of such con- 

 jugal faithfulness will be musick to all chaste 

 ears, and therefore I pray hearken to what Du Bartas 

 sings of the Mullet. 



But for chaste love the Mullet hath no peer ; 

 For, if the fisher hath surprised her pheer*, 

 As mad with wo, to shore she followeth ; 

 Prest t to consort him, both in life and death. 



On the contrary, what shall I say of the House-cock, 

 which treads any hen ; and, then, contrary to the Swan, 

 the Partridge, and Pigeon, TAKES NO CARE to hatch, to 

 feed or cherish his own brood, but is senseless, though 

 they perish. And it is considerable, that the Hen, which, 

 because she also takes any Cock, EXPECTS IT NOT ; who 

 is sure the chickens be her own, hath by a moral im- 

 pression her care and affection to her own brood more 

 than doubled, even to such a height, that our Saviour, 

 in expressing his love to Jerusalem, Matt. 23. 37, 



chiefly for this reason, that the stealing of Swans is by our law made penalJ 

 so as that, " He who stealeth a Swan, in an open and common river, law- 

 fully marked; the same Swan shall be hung in a house by the 

 " beak ; and he who stole it shall, in recompence thereof, give to the 

 " owner so much wheat as may cover all the Swan, by putting and turn- 

 *' ing the wheat upon the head of the Swan, until the head of the Swan be 

 * covered with wheat. " Coke's Reports, Part VII. The case of Swans. 



* Or Fellow; so Bed-pheer, Bed-fellow. 



f Prest, from the French Fret, Lat. JParatus, ready, prepared. So Psalm 

 CIV. old version: 



He maketh his spirites as heralds to go ; 

 And lightnings, to serve, we see also frest. 



Vide GIOSSA*T to Robert of Chuttster and to Peter Lan^toft. Edit. 

 jHearne, 



