THE COMPLETE ANGLER, PART I* 



/ could there sit quietly ; and, looking on the water, 

 see some fishes sport themselves in the silver streams, 

 others leaping at flies of several shapes and colours, 

 looking on the hills, I could behold them spotted 

 with woods and groves, looking down the meadows, 

 could see, here, a boy gathering Hllies and lady- 

 smocks, and, there, a girl cropping culverkeys and 

 cowslips, all to make garlands suitable to this pre- 

 sent month of May : these, and many other field- 

 flowers, so perfumed the air, that I thought that 

 very meadow like that field in Sicily of which Diodorus 

 speaks, where the perfumes arising from the place, make 

 all dogs that hunt in it to fall off, and to lose their 

 hottest scent, I say, as I, thus, sat; joying in my own 

 happy condition ; and pitying this poor rich-man, that 

 owned this arid many other pleasant groves and meadows 

 about me ; I did thankfully remember what my Saviour 

 said, that the meek possess the earth) or rather, THEY 

 ENJOY what the OTHERS POSSESS AND ENJOY NOT ; for 

 anglers and meek quiet-spirited men, are free from those 

 high, those restless thoughts, which corrode the sweets 

 of life, and they, and they only, can say; as the poet 

 has happily exprest it : 



Hail, blest estate of lowliness ! 



Happy enjoyments ! of such minds, 

 As, rich in self-contentedness, 



Can, like the reeds, in roughest winds, 



By yielding, make that hlow hut small 



At which proud oaks and cedars fall. 



There came, also, into my mind at that time, certain 

 verses in praise of a mean estate and an humble mind: 

 they were written by Phineas Fletcher *; an excellent 



" delights, and the stores of nature are inexhaustible." See his System of 

 Moral Philosophy, Book I. Chap. 7. 



* It would be great injustice to the memory of this person whose 

 name is now hardly known, to pass him by without notice. The son 

 of Giles Fletcher, doctor of laws, and ambassador from Queen Elizabeth 

 to the Duke of Muscovy, Pbineas Fletcher was fellow of King's college, 

 Cambridge, and the author of a fine allegorical poem, intituled, the 



