CHAP. V.] THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 123 



** But he that unto others leads the way 



In public prayer, 

 Should do it so, 

 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 prayed. 



" Devotion will add life unto the letter, 

 And why should not 

 That which authority 

 Prescribes esteemed be 



Advantage got ? 



If th' 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 you, this kind of fishing with a dead rod, 

 and laying night-hooks, are like putting money to use ; for 

 they both work for the owners when they do nothing but sleep, 

 or eat, or rejoice ; 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. No life, my honest Scholar, no life so happy and 

 so pleasant as the life of a well-governed Angler ; for when 

 the lawyer is swallowed up with business, and the statesman 

 is preventing or contriving plots, then we sit on cowslip banks, 

 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, my good Scholar, we may say of Angling, as 

 Dr. Boteler said of strawberries : " Doubtless God could have 

 made a better berry, but doubtless God never did " : and so, 



