68 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



man whose foreign employments in the service of this 

 nation, and whose experience, learning, wit, and cheerful- 

 ness, made his company to be esteemed one of the delights 

 of mankind : this man, whose very approbation of angling 

 were sufficient to convince any modest censurer of it, this 

 man was also a most dear lover and a frequent practiser 

 of the art of angling ; of which he would say, " 'T was an 

 employment for his idle time, which was then not idly 

 spent ; for angling was, after tedious study, a rest to his 

 mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer 

 of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of 

 contentedness ;" and "that it begat habits of peace and 

 patience in those that professed and practised it." Indeed, 

 my friend, you will find angling to be like the virtue of 

 humility, which has a calmness of spirit, and a world of 

 other blessings attending upon it Sir, this was the saying 

 of that learned man. 



And I do easily believe, that peace and patience, and a 

 calm content, did cohabit in the cheerful heart of Sir Henry 

 Wotton ; because I know that when he was beyond seventy 

 years of age he made this description of a part of the pre- 

 sent pleasure that possessed him, as he sat quietly in a 

 summer's evening, on a bank, a-fishing. It is a description 

 of the spring; which, because it glided as soft and sweetly 

 from his pen, as that river does at this time, by which it 

 was then made, I shall repeat it unto you : 



This day dame Nature seem'd in love ; 

 The lusty sap began to move; 

 Fresh juice did stir th' embracing vines ; 

 And birds had drawn their valentines. 



