34 * THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



Sir, but a little longer, and I have done. 



Ven. Sir, take what liberty you think fit, for your discourse 

 seems to me nmsic, and charms me to an attention. 



Pisc. Why then, Sir, I will take a little liberty to tell, or 

 rather to remember you what is said of turtle-doves ; first, that 

 they silently plight their troth and marry; and that then, the 

 survivor scorns, as the Thracian women are said to do, to outlive 

 his or her mate, and this is taken for a truth, and if the survivor 

 shall ever couple with another, then not only the living but the 

 dead, be it either the he or the she, is denied the name and honor 

 of a true turtle-dove. 



And to parallel this land- rarity, and teach mankind moral 

 faithfulness, and to condemn those that talk of religion, and yet 

 come short of the moral faith of fish and fowl ; men that violate 

 the law affirmed by St. Paul, Rom. ii., 14, 15, to be writ in their 

 hearts, and which, he says, shall at the last day condemn and 

 leave them without excuse ; — I pray hearken to what Du Bartas 

 sings, for the hearing of such conjugal faithfulness will be music 

 to all chaste ears, and therefore I pray hearken to what Du 

 Bartas sings of the mullet. 



But for chaste love the Mullet hath no peer ;* 

 For if the fisher hath surprised her pheer. 

 As mad with woe, to shore she followeth^ 

 Prest to consort him both in life and death. 



On the contrary, what shall I say of the house-cock, which 

 treads any hen, and then, contrary to the swan, the partridge, 

 and pigeon, takes no care to hatch, to feed, or to cherish his own 

 brood, but is senseless, though they perish. 



And it is considerable, that the hen, which, because she also 

 takes any cock, expects it not, who is sure the chickens be her 

 own, hath by a moral impression her care and affection to her 

 own brood more than doubled, even to such a height, that our 

 Saviour, in expressing his love to Jerusalem, Matt, xxiii., 37, 

 quotes her for an example of tender affection ; as his Father had 

 done Job for a pattern of patience. 



* Oppian, iv., f)^.—Am. Ed. Pheer, fellow ; bed pheer, bed fellow. — 

 Hawkins. 



