THE ANGLERS SOUVENIR. 



FISHER. Again, I drink it with pleasure. De- 

 servedly does the honest angler call him " father,'' 

 and happy are his sons who walk in the path of 

 their worthy parent. A spirit of cheerful piety 

 pervades his whole book ; and, as he instructs us 

 how to angle, he interweaves his precepts with 

 descriptions and reflections which teach us how to 

 live happily and die well. His book is like one of 

 the delightful scenes which he describes with so 

 thorough a feeling of their quiet beauties. A 

 pleasant meadow, with a stream running past it, 

 bounded by low woody hills ; field-flowers bloom- 

 ing among the grass and perfuming the air ; with 

 boys and girls cropping cowslips, culkerkeyes, and 

 lilies, to make garlands to welcome in the merry 

 month of May. I could almost wish that I had 

 lived in those days, to have gone a-fishing with the 

 good old man, whose humour was "to be free and 

 pleasant, and civilly merry ;" to have listened to 

 his reminiscences of learned and pious Dr. Nowell, 

 cheerful Sir Henry Wotton, holy Master George 

 Herbert, witty Dr. Donne, or reverend Bishop 

 Sanderson ; to have eaten a piece of powdered 

 beef and a radish with him, to breakfast under a 

 sycamore tree ; drank a cup of ale, and borne a 

 part in a catch with him in the evening at the 

 house of a cleanly, handsome, and civil hostess, 

 in company with a downright witty companion, 

 who had come out purposely to be pleasant, and 

 eat a trout ; and then, after bidding " Good night 



