THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 243 



I will pledge yon, and fall to my repetition : it is a description of 

 such country recreations as I have enjoyed since I had the happi- 

 ness to fall into your company. 



Quivcrins; fears, heart-tearing cares, 

 Anxious sighs, untimely tears. 



Fly, fly to courts. 



Fly to fond worldlings" sports. 

 Where strain'd Sardonic smiles are glosing still, 

 jlnd grief is forced to laugh against her will ; 



Where mirth's but mummery. 



And sorrows only real be. 



Fly from our country pastimes, fly. 

 Sad troops of human misery: — 



Cume, serene looks. 



Clear as the crystal brooks. 

 Or the pure azur'd heaven that smiles to see 

 The rich attendance on our poverty ; 



Peace, and a secure mind. 



Which all men seek, we onlyflnd. 



Abused mortals, did you know 



Where joy, heart's ease, and comforts grow. 



You'd scorn proud towers. 



And seek them in these bowers ; 

 Where winds sometimes our rooods perhaps may shake. 

 But blustering care could never tempest make, 



A''or murmurs e'er come nigh us. 



Saving of fountains that glide by us. 



Here's no fantastic masque nor dance. 

 But of our kids that frisk and prance ; 



** Mountains," " Purling Fountains," is not that around the Fishing-house 

 of Wotton, on the banks of the Thames near Windsor. Neither does the 

 structure of the verse resemble Wotton's ; but that and the scenery, with 

 many expressions in the poems, strongly remind us of the Stanzes Irregu- 

 lieres, addressed to Walton by Cotton. To Cotton, however, the piece 

 can scarcely be attributed, as in such case they must have been written 

 before their author was twenty-one, while they show a far more mature 

 judgment and feeling than he could then have had. The safest conclu- 

 sion is acquiescence in the signature given to them in the Rel. Wott., 

 " Ignoto." It should, however, be added, that the piece is printed anony- 

 mously in Clifford's Tixall Poetry (p. 2'J7-.300), with the title, Rusticatio 

 Religiosi in Vacantiis, which would agree with W^ottou's habit. — Am. Ed. 



