CHAP* XVI. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



Ptsc. Yes, indeed; for it is many years since I 

 learned it, and having forgotten a part of it, I was 

 forced to patch it up by the help of mine own invention ; 

 who am not excellent at poetry, as my part of the song 

 may testify : but of that I will say no more, lest you 

 should think I mean, by discommending it, to beg your 

 commendations of it. And therefore, without replica- 

 tions, let's hear your catch, scholar ! which I hope will 

 be a good one ; for you are both musical, and have a 

 good fancy to-boot. 



Ven. Marry ! and that you shall ; and as freely, 

 as I would have my honest master tell me some more 

 secrets offish and fishing, as we walk, and fish, towards 

 London to-morrow. But master t first let me tell you, 

 That very hour which you were absent from me, I 

 sat down under a willow-tree by the water-side ; and 

 considered what you had told me of the owner of that 

 pleasant meadow in which you then left me that he had 

 a plentiful estate, and not a heart to think so ; that he 

 had, at this time many law-suits depending; and 

 that they, both damped his mirth, and took up so 

 much of his time and thoughts, that he himself had 

 not leisure to take the sweet content that /, who 

 pretended no title to them, took in his fields * : for 



* There is so much fine and useful morality included in this sentiment, 

 that to let it pass would be inexcusable in one who pretends to illustrate 

 the author's meaning, or display his excellencies. The precept which he, 

 evidently, meant to inculcate; is a very comfortable one, viz. that some of 

 the greatest pleasures human-nature is capable of, lie open, and in common, 

 to the poor as well as the rich. It is not necessary, that a man should 

 have the fee-simple of all the land, in prospect from Windsor terras, 

 or Richmond hill, to enjoy the beauty of these two delightful 

 situations; nor can we imagine that no one, but lord Burlington, 

 was ever delighted in the view of his most elegant villa at Chis- 

 wick. 



But that excellent moralist, Dr. Francis Hutcheson, late of Glasgow, 

 has a passage to this purpose; which is a much better comment on 

 this reflection than any we can give : " As often," says he, " as the 

 " more important offices of virtue allow any intervals, our time is 

 " agreeably and honourably employed in history, natural or civil ; in 

 " geometry ; astronomy ; poetry ; painting ; and musick ; or, such enter- 

 * tainments as ingenious arts afford. And some of the sweetest en- 

 " joyments, of this sort, require no property ; nor need we, ever, want 

 " the objects. If familiarity abates the pleasure of the more obvious 

 f * beauties of nature, their more exquisite inward structures may give new 



