The Compleat ^Angler 



Would the world now adopt me for her heir ; 



Would beauty's queen entitle me the fair ; 



Fame speak me fortunes minion ; could I vie 



Angels with India; with a speaking eye 



Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike justice dumb. 



As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue 



To stones by epitaphs; be calVd "great master" 



In the loose rhymes of every poetaster: 



Could I be more than any man that lives, 



Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives : 



Yet I more freely would these gifts resign, 



Than ever Fortune would have made them mine; 



And hold one minute of this holy leisure 



Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure. 



Welcome, pure thoughts, welcome, ye silent groves, 



These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves 



Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing 



My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring; 



A prayer-book, now, shall be my looking-glass, 



In which I will adore sweet virtue** face, 



Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares, 



No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced fears ; 



Then here Pll sit, and sigh my hot lovers folly, 



And learn affect a holy melancholy; 



And if contentment be a stranger, then 



ril ne'er look for it, but in heaven, again. 



VEN. Well, master, these verses be worthy to keep a room in every 

 man's memory. I thank you for them ; and I thank you for your 

 many instructions, which (God willing) I will not forget. And as St. 

 Austin, in his Confessions (book 4, chap. 5), commemorates the 

 kindness of his friend Verecundus, for lending him and his companion 

 a country house ; because there they rested and enjoyed themselves, 

 free from the troubles of the world : so, having had the like advan- 

 tage, both by your conversation and the art you have taught me, I 

 ought ever to do the like ; for indeed, your company and discourse 



249 R 



