148 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART i. 



Where we may 

 Think and pray, 

 Before death 

 Stops our breath : 

 Other joys 

 Are but toys, 

 And to be lamented." Jo. CHALKHILL. 



VEN. Well sung, master : this day's fortune and pleasure, 

 and this night's company and song, do all make me more and more 

 in love with angling. Gentlemen, my master left me alone for 

 an hour this day ; and I verily believe he retired himself from 

 talking with me, that he might be so perfect in this song : was 

 it not, master ? 



PlSC. Yes, indeed ; for it is many years since I learned it, and 

 having forgotten a part of it, I was forced to patch it up by the 

 help of mine own invention, who am not excellent at poetry, as 

 my part of the song may testify : but of that I will say no more, 

 1^ yi 'fh^ilH thinlr T mnnn h^discommending it to beg your 

 commendations of it. And therefore, without replications, let 

 us hear your catch, scholar, which I hope will be a good one ; 

 for you are both musical, and have a good fancy to boot. 

 ~ VEN. Marry, and that you shall ; and as freely as I would 

 have my honest master tell me some more secrets of fish and 

 fishing as we walk and fish towards London to-morrow. But, 

 master, first let me tell you, that very hour which you were absent 

 from me, I sat down under a willow tree by the water-side, and 

 considered what you had told me of the owner of that pleasant 

 meadow in which you had then left me ; that he had a plentiful 

 estate, and not a heart to think so ; that he had at this time 

 many law-suits depending, and that they both damped his mirth 

 and took up so much of his time and thoughts, that he himself 

 had not leisure to take the sweet content that T,, who pr 



\ no title to them, took in his fields : for I could sit there quietly ; 

 \ and looking^on the water, see some fishes sport themselves in 

 j the silver streams, others leaping at flies of several shapes and 

 [ colours; looking on the hills, I could behold them spotted with 

 : ; woods and groves ; looking down the meadows, could see, here 



