30 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



We all acknowledge both thy power and love 

 To be exact, transcendent, and divine ; 

 Who dost so strangely and so sweetly move. 

 Whilst all things have their end, yet none but thine. 



Wherefore, most sacred Spirit, I here present 

 For me, and all my fellows, praise to thee ; 

 And just it is that I should pay the rent. 

 Because the benefit accrues to me. 



And as concerning fish in that Psalm (104), wherein for height 

 of poetry and wonders, the Prophet David seems even to exceed 

 himself, how doth he there express himself in choice metaphors, 

 even to the amazement of a contemplative reader, concerning 

 the sea, the rivers, and the fish therein contained ? And the 

 great naturalist, Pliny,* says, " That Nature's great and wonder- 

 ful power is more demonstrated in the sea than on the land." 

 And this may appear by the numerous and various creatures 

 inhabiting both in and about that element ; as to the readers of 

 Gesner.f Rondeletius,:{: Pliny, Ausonius,§ Aristotle, and others, 

 may be demonstrated. But I will sweeten this discourse also 

 out of a contemplation in divine Du Bartas,|| who says, 



* Pliny was translated by Philemon Holland, M. D., IGOl. It is from 

 that translation Walton quotes. — Am. Ed. 



t Conrade Gesner, a learned physician and naturalist of Zurich. His 

 principal works were his Historia Animalium, in three folio volumes, 

 Zurich, and a smaller volume, De Piscibus et Aquatilibus, curious for 

 Scholia on the Halicuticon, ascribed to Ovid, a list of the fish in Pliny, and 

 their names in Latin, German and English. My copy of the last has no 

 date. — Am. Ed. 



X Ilondeletius, or Guillaume Rondelet, a physician and naturalist of 

 Languedoc. His best work is De Piscibus Marinis. Walton is really 

 citing from Topsel's Historie of Four-footed Beasts, 1G07, and Hist, of 

 Serpents, IQOS.—Am. Ed. 



§ Ausonius, see Bib. Preface. 



II Guillaume de Sallust, Sieur du Bartas. He served in the army of 

 Henry IV., and was employed on several missions to England, Scotland, 

 and Denmark. His great work is a poem in seven books, entitled "A 

 Commentary of the Work of the Creation of the World," which passed 

 through thirty editions in six years, and obtained for him the title, " Prince 

 of tlie French Poets." The doctrines are those of the Huguenots. It was 

 translated by Joshua Sylvester (Ben Jonson's friend), in 1605. It is sup- 

 posed, with no great reason, to have given Milton the idea of his great 



