318 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART I, 



These observations are out of learned Dr. Heylin, 

 and my old deceased friend, Michael Dray ton ; and 

 because you say, you love such discourses, as these - 

 of rivers, and fish and fishing I love you the better, 

 and love the more to impart them to you. Never- 

 theless, scholar ! if I should begin but to name {he se- 

 yeral sorts of strange fish that are usually taken in 

 many of those rivers that run into the sea, I might 

 beget wonder in you, or unbelief, or both : and yet I 

 will venture to tell you a real truth, concerning one 

 lately dissected by Dr. Wharton, a man of great 

 learning and experience, and of equal freedom to com* 

 municate it ; one that loves me and my art ; one to 

 whom I have been beholden for many of the choicest 

 observations that I have imparted to you*. This 

 good man, that dares do any thing rather than tell an 

 untruth, did, I say, tell me, he lately dissected one 

 strange fish, and he thus described it to me : 



ment; that he established, if not invented, the method of trial by juries ; 

 that he built many cities and churches; restored, if not founded, the uni-r 

 versity of Oxford, and re-edified almost every monastery in his dominions; tha$ 

 he fought no less than ffty-six battles, including sea-fights ; that he was 

 pious, "wise, chaste, temperate, brave, learned, munificent, and merciful ; and 

 that he delivered this country from the insupportable tyranny of the Danes ; 

 who can reflect on his memory without gratitude and admiration ! 



Asserius Menevensis, his historian, tells us, that, " for dividing his 

 " time, and keeping an account of it, he caused wax-candles, to the 

 number of six, to be made, each of them twelve inches long, on 

 * which he caused the inches to be marked ; and having found that one 

 of them burnt just four hours, he committed them to the care of the 

 " keepers of his chapel, who, from time to time, gave him notice how 

 the hours went. But; as in windy weather the candles were wasted 

 * by the impression of the air on the flame, he, to remedy this inconve- 

 ' nience, invented lanthorns, there then being no glass in his dominions. 1 ' 



The same author has given us the following pleasant story of him; 

 which concludes this note. 



* Seeing his subjects fly the enemy, in the midst of his country, he 

 took the disguise of a common soldier, and committed himself to one 

 who had the keeping of the king's cows : whose wife having, one 

 " day, set a cake of bread to bake before the fire, where the king sat 

 M trimming his bow and arrows, the cake burnt, which the king heeded 

 " not, till the woman, enraged at his inattention, with all the fury of a 

 " good housewife, called him an idle lubber, and gave him to understand, 

 that if be expected to eat, he mutt ivorL" Vide Spelman's Life of JE If red 

 Aforesaid. 



* See an account of him ante, pa, 99, n. 



