THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 199 



As rich in self-contentedness. 



Can, like the reeds in roughest winds, 

 By yielding make that blow but 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 divine and an excellent an- 



* In the first edition our author wrote — " Phineas Fletcher, who in 

 his Purple Island has so excellently imitated our Spenser's Faerie 

 Queen." Phineas Fletcher belonged to a poetical family ; his father, Dr. 

 Giles Fletcher, was, according to Wood, " a learned man and excellent 

 poet ;" his brother Giles was the author of Christ's Victory and Triumph ; ^ 

 so that Benlowes, in his commendatory verses to Phineas, well says : 



" Thou art a poet born, who know thee know it ; 

 Thy brother, sire, thy very name's a poet." 



He was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and beneficed with the liv- 

 ing of Hilgay, Norfolk. His first production was Sicelides, a Piscatory, 

 which he wrote about 1614, but did not publish until 1631, when it ap- 

 peared without his name " as it hath been acted in King's College, Cam- 

 bridge ;" 4to. The scene of it is laid in Sicily. In 1G32 he published a 

 small prose treatise, 12mo., De Liter atis Antiques Britannice, having spe- 

 cial reference to Cambridge ; and in 1633, The Purple Island, with Pisca- 

 torie Eclogues, and other Poeticall Miscellanies, by P. F. Printed by the 

 Printers to the Universitie of Cambridge, 4to. The Purple Island is a 

 poetical description, in the Spenserian stanza, of the human anatomy, and 

 notwithstanding the difficulty of his subject, it shows much poetical skill, 

 while some passages occur in it of no small merit. His Piscatorie Eclogues, 

 less elaborate, are very pleasing, as are some of his Miscellanies. The 

 quotation in the text is from the third, fifth and sixth verses of the 

 Xllth (last) canto of The Purple Island. Walton has used his wonted 

 freedom in altering his author, thus : where the original has, " His bed 

 of wool yields," &c., our author writes, "His bed more safe than soft," 

 &c., Fletcher also wrote, " Never his humble house or state torment 

 him :" and his last line is, 



" And when he dies, green turfs with grassie tomb content him." 



The Piscatory Eclogues were republished with a preface and illustrative 

 notes, by Alex. Fraser Tytler (afterwards Lord Woodhouselee), at Edin- 

 burgh, 1771, duo. Not only in the Eclogues, but throughout his writings, 

 Fletcher's angling propensities are discoverable. — Am. Ed. 



