CHAP. XXI.] THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 22$ 



sleep quietly. We see but the outside of the rich man's happi- 

 ness : few consider him to be like the silkworm, that, when 

 she seems to play, is, at the very same time, spinning her own 

 bowels, and consuming herself. And this many rich men do ; 

 loading themselves with corroding cares, to keep what they 

 have, probably, unconscionably got. Let us, therefore, be thank- 

 ful for health and a competence, and above all, for a quiet con- 

 science. 



Let me tell you, Scholar, that Diogenes walked on a day, 

 with his friend, to see a country-fair ; where he saw ribbons, 

 and looking-glasses, and nut-crackers, and fiddles, and hobby- 

 horses, and many other gimcracks; and having observed 

 them, and all the other finnimbruns that make a complete 

 country-fair, he said to his friend, "Lord! How many 

 things are there in this world, of which Diogenes hath no 

 need ! " And truly it is so, or might be so, with very many 

 who vex and toil themselves to get what they have no need of. 

 Can any man charge God, that he hath not given him enough 

 to make his life happy ? No, doubtless ; for nature is content 

 with a little. And yet you shall hardly meet with a man that 

 complains not of some want ; though he, indeed, wants nothing 

 but his will, it may be, nothing but his will of his poor neigh- 

 bor, for not worshipping, or not flattering him : and thus, when 

 we might be happy and quiet, we create trouble to ourselves. 

 I have heard of a man that was angry with himself because 

 he was no taller ; and of a woman that broke her looking-glass 

 because it would not show her face to be as young and hand- 

 some as her next neighbor's was. And I knew another, to 

 whom God had given health, and plenty ; but a wife, that 

 nature had made peevish, and her husband's riches had made 

 purse-proud, and must, because she was rich, and for no other 

 virtue, sit in the highest pew in the church ; which being de- 

 nied her, she engaged her husband into a contention for it ; 

 and, at last, into a lawsuit with a dogged neighbor, who was 

 as rich as he, and had a wife as peevish and purse-proud as the 



