The Comfleat ^Angler 



The world is ours, and ours alone; 



For we alone have world at will. 

 We purchase not all is our own; 



Both fields and streets we beggars Jill. 



Bright shines the sun ; play^ beggars^ play ! 



Here's scraps enough to serve to-day. 



A hundred herds of black and white 



Upon our gowns securely feed ; 

 And yet if any dare us bite, 



He dies, therefore, as sure as creed. 

 Thus beggars lord it as they please, 

 And only beggars live at ease. 



Bright shines the sun ; play, beggars, play ! 



Here's scraps enough to serve to-day. 



VEN. I thank you, good master, for this piece of merriment, and 

 this song, which was well humoured by the maker, and well remem- 

 bered by you. 



Pise. But, I pray, forget not the catch which you promised to 

 make against night ; for our countryman, honest Condon, will 

 expect your catch, and my song, which I must be forced to patch up, 

 for it is so long since I learnt it, that I have forgotten a part of it. 

 But come, now it hath done raining, let's stretch our legs a little in 

 a gentle walk to the river, and try what interest our angles will pay 

 us for lending them so long to be used by the trouts ; lent them, 

 indeed, like usurers, for our profit and their destruction. 



VEN. Oh me ! look you, master, a fish ! a fish ! Oh, alas, master, 

 I have lost her ! 



Pise. Ay, marry, sir, that was a good fish indeed : if I had had 

 the luck to have taken up that rod, then 'tis twenty to one he 

 should not have broke my line by running to the rod's end, as you 

 suffered him. I would have held him within the bent of my rod 

 (unless he had been fellow to the great trout that is near an ell 

 long, which was of such a length and depth that he had his picture 

 drawn, and now is to be seen at mine host Rickabie's, at the 

 George, in Ware), and it may be by giving that very great trout 



