650 LITERATURE OF SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 



The " Angler's Song," beginning with the words " Man's 

 life is but vain," &c., which occurs in the "Fourth Day," 

 appears in the first edition of The Complete Angler. The 

 music, with old-fashioned diamond-headed notes, is curiously 

 printed, that for two voices being on one page (216) in the 

 ordinary way, but that for the other voice, on the next page 

 (217), is printed upside down, so that the singers standing 

 opposite to one another, and holding the book, would each 

 have his own music properly presented to him. 



Cotton, Walton's friend and literary coadjutor, also 

 wooed the muses, though perhaps not with great success. 

 In his Retirement " Stanzes Irreguliers to Mr. Izaak 

 Walton " he shows poetic feeling, but some disregard of 

 rhythm. His favourite river, the Dove, and his desire to dwell 

 for ever quietly, is his theme. He exclaims in Dovedale : 



" Good God ! how sweet are all things here ! 

 How beautiful the fields appear ! 

 How cleanly do we feed and lie ! 

 Lord ! what good hours do we keep ! 



How quietly we sleep ! 

 What peace ! what unanimity ! 

 How innocent from the lewd fashion 

 Is all our business, all our recreation ! 



* * * 



u Oh my beloved nymph ; fair Dove ; 

 Princess of rivers, how I love 

 Upon thy flowery banks to lie ; 

 And view thy silver stream, 

 When gilded by a summer's beam, 

 And in it all thy wanton fry 



Playing at liberty 

 And, with my angle, upon them 



The all of treachery 

 I ever learnt, industriously to try. 



Most Midland people (as the writer observed when 



