308 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



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 I, who pretended 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 

 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 a boy gathering lilies and lady-smocks, and 

 there a girl cropping culverkeys and cowslips, all to make 

 garlands suitable to this present month of May ; these, and 

 many other field-flowers, so perfumed the air, that I thought 

 that very meadow like that field in Sicily of which Diodorus 

 speaks, where the perfumes arising from the place make all 

 dogs that hunt in it to fall off, and to lose their hottest 

 scent. I say, as I thus sat, joying in my own happy 

 condition, and pitying this poor rich man that owned this 

 and many other pleasant groves and meadows about me, I 

 did thankfully remember what my Saviour said, that the 



