THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 245 



they will, he that writ them had a brave soul, and must needs be 

 possessed with happy thoughts at the time of their composure. 



Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles ; 

 Farewell, ye hoJior^d rags, ye glorious bubbles : 

 Fame's but a hollow echo 7 gold, pure clay ; 

 Honor, the darling but of one short day ; 

 Beauty, tlf eye's idol, but a damasked skin ; 

 State, but a golden prison to live in. 

 And torture free-born minds ; embroider'' d trains. 

 Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins ; 



edition)." Hannah says : " With this account agrees the title of a copy 

 in MS. Ashm., 3S, " Dr. Donne's Valadiction to the Worlde." He adds- 

 " Headly (ii., 24, ed 1757) and Campbell (p. 157, second edition) have print- 

 ed it as Wotton's on Walton's authority, without any sign of doubt. . . In 

 Sir H Nicholas's noble reprint of Walton, we find a note upon the poem : 

 * These verses are also said to have been written by Sir Walter Raleigh, 

 when a prisoner in the Tower, shortly before his execution.' '* This note 

 is, however, altered from Mess Browne's (edition of Walton, 1772), on the 

 lines: " They are positively said to be by the great Sir Walter Raleigh ; 

 written (and very suitably) while a prisoner in the Tower, a little before 

 his execution, and appear (vouched as his) in a printed life of him, yet 

 extant." The date of this "life" Browne does not give, but his state- 

 ment, " vouched as his," is strong. Hannah goes on to say : " A fourth 

 claimant is added from ' Wits Interpreter' (1671, p. 269), where the 

 poem is said to be ' By Sir Kenelme Digby.' On this authority, EUi.-* 

 inserted a part of it in his Collection under Digby's name (iii., 171), ed. 

 ISU). A singular title is prefixed to an anonymous copy of it in San- 

 croft's Collection (MS. Taun., 465, fol. 59) : ' An Hermite in an Arbour, 

 w* a prayer booke in his hand, his foote spurning a globe, thus speaketh.'" 

 Hannah adds in a note, marking some variations from the Sancroft MS, in 

 Walton's transcript, " it would seem that the text which Sancroft copied 

 underwent a revisal from the author before it fell into Walton's hand ;"' 

 but, as we have seen, it was Walton's wont to alter the verses he quoted to 

 suit his taste. The whole evidence goes against its being as late as Wot- 

 ton's, and, as such is the general tradition, it may be Raleigh's, though not 

 written by him just before death, nor during his imprisonment, as appears 

 from the last verse. 



*' Welcome, ye silent Groves ! 

 These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly love. 

 Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing 

 My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring." 



The whole piece describes a courtier in rural, domestic retirement. — 

 Am. Ed. 



