ON THE 



ANTIQUITY AND INVENTION 



OP 



FISHING, 



AND ITS PRAISE IN GENERAL, 



WHEN God at first placed Adam in a seat, 

 So rare, so rich, so princely, and so great, 

 Eden's fair garden eastward to the Sun, 

 Through whose fat soil four silver streams did run ; 

 The first Euphrates, whose fair waves do kiss 

 The monarch's towers of proud Semiramis : 

 Swift Pison thence, and Gihon did arise (Gen. 2. 

 Tigris the fourth to water Paradise ; 

 These in their kind were furnish'd to present 

 Adam with fish from the wat'ry element : 

 This added to his bliss ; by which we see 

 Fishing derives an ancient Pedigree, 

 And bears its date from the forbidden tree. 

 Next unto him that built the wooden wall, 

 But for whose Ark the flood had drowned all. 

 Yet still the fish mov'd in their proper sphere, 

 They neither rain nor deluge deep did fear. 

 Noah with them himself might recreate, (Gen. 8. 

 Till Dove brought news the waters did abate. 

 Food sure was scarce, when Mr. Flood had left, 

 Few beasts but those for procreation kept. 

 Hunger might force eight persons to devise 

 A trick to take what fish to the top did rise. 

 Now this 10 poets, fiction did afford 

 How the empty world should be with people 

 When good Deucalion and his Phyrrha dear 9 

 Were left of all that overwhelmed 



