90 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART i. 



As all that hear may know 



They need not fear 



To tune their hearts unto his tongue, and say, 

 Amen ; not doubt they were betrayed 

 To blaspheme, when they meant to have pray'd. 



Devotion will add life unto the letter: 



And why should not 

 That which authority 

 Prescribes, esteemed be 



Advantage got ? 



If the prayer be good, the commoner the better ; 

 Prayer in the Church's words as well 

 As sense, of all prayers bears the bell." CH. HARVIE. 



And now, scholar, I think it will be time to repair to our 

 angle-rods, which we left in the water to fish for themselves ; 

 and you shall choose which shall be yours ; and it is an even 

 lay, one of them catches. 



And, let me tell yon, this kind of fishing with a. dead rod, and 



^k layinJImgEEfiOsSl^fiJike putting money to use ; Jbr_they both 



work for the owners, when they do nothing but sleep, or eat, or 



reJotjQe ; as you know we have done this last hour, and sat as 



quietly and as free from cares under this sycamore as Virgil's 



Tityrus and his Melibceus did under their broad beech tree. 



Nojife, rny honest scholar, no life so happy anj^sopleasarit^as 



the life of a well-governed angler, for when the lawyer is 



swallowed up with business, and the statesman is preventing 



^Jtr .ror contriving plots, then we sit on cowslip banksj hear the birds 



sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent 



silver streams, which we now see glide so quietly by us. Indeed, 



- myj^odjscholar, we may say of angling, as Dr. Botelcr said of 



strawberries, " Doubtless God could have made a better berry, 



but doubtless God never did;" and so, if I might be judge, 



* W j "TJnrj^ "pyf did ma,kp n mm-p ra1m t quiet., innocent recreation 



jf / than angling/' 



141 tell you, scholar, when I sat last on this primrose bank, 

 Vr and looked down these meadows, I thought of them, j^-Gfoarles 



