CHAP. XVI. THE COMPLETE ANGLER 285 



His life is neither tost in boist'rous seas, 



Or the vexatious world ; or lost in slothful ease. 



Pleas'd and full blest, he lives, when he his God can please. 



His bed, more safe than soft, yields quiet sleeps. 



While by his side his faithful spouse hath place ; 

 His little son, into his bosom creeps, 



The lively picture of his fathers face. 

 His humble house, or poor sta'e, ne'er torment him ; 

 Less he could like, if less his God had lent him. 

 And when he dies, green turfs do for a tomb content him. 



Gentlemen ! these were a part of the thoughts that 

 then possessed me. And I, there, made a conversion 

 of a piece of an old catch*, and added more to it ; 



And besides Mr. Phineas Fletcher a gentleman now living, the 

 Rev. Mr. Motes Browne, has obliged the world with Piscatory Eclogues , 

 which I would recommend to all lovers of poetry and angling; and am 

 much mistaken if the fifth of them, intitled Renock's Despair, is not, by 

 far, the best imitation of Milton's LycuLis, that has ever yet appeared. 



* The song here sung can in no sense of the word be termed a catch : 

 It was probably set to musick at the request of Walton, and is to be found 

 in a book, entitled, Select Ay res and Dialogues for one, tiuo, and three Payees ; 

 to the Theorbo-Lute and Basse Viol. By John Wilson and Charles Coleman, 

 doctors in musick, Henry Lawes and others. Fol. London, 1659. It occurs 

 in the first edition of Walton's book, published in 1G53. 



The reader is not to wonder at this motion of Senator's, nor that PLca- 

 for so readily accepts it. At the time when Walton wrote, and long before, 

 musick was so generally well understood, that a man who had any voice 

 or ear, was always supposed to be able to sing his part, in a madrigal 

 or song, at sight. Peacham requires of his gentleman, only to be able 

 " to sing his part sure, and at the first sight ; and, withal, to play the 

 same on the viol or lute." Compl. Gent. 100. And Philomathes, in 

 Morley's excellent Introduction to practical mus':ck, fol. Lund. 1597, thus com- 

 plains ; [at the banquet of master Sophobulus] " Supper being ended ; 

 " and musick-books, according to custom, being brought to table, the 

 " mistress of the house presented me with a part, earnestly requesting me 

 " to sing. But when, after many excuses, 1 protested unfeignedly, that 

 " I could not, every one began to wonder; yea, some whispered to 

 " others, demanding how I was brought up. So that, upon shame of 

 " mine ignorance, I go, now, to seek out mine old friend, master Gno- 

 " rimus, to make myself his scholar." 



Another circumstance, which shews how generally musick was formerly 

 known and practised in England, occurred to me, upon the sight of an 

 old Book of Enigmas; to every one of which the author has prefixed 

 a wooden cut of tbe subject of the enigma. The solution to one of tbese, 

 is A barber: and the cut represents a barber's shop, in which there is 

 one person sitting in a chair under the barber's hands; while another, 



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