THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 93 



Piscator. Well sung, Condon! this song was sung with 

 mettle ; and it was choicely fitted to the occasion : I shall love 

 you for it as long as I know you. I would you were a brother 

 of the angle ; for a companion that is cheerful, and free from 

 swearing and scurrilous discourse, is worth gold. I love such 

 mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one 

 another next morning ; nor men, that cannot well bear it, to 

 repent the money they spend when they be warmed with drink. 

 And take this for a rule : you may pick out such times and such 

 companies, that you may make yourselves merrier for a little 

 than a great deal of money ; for " "Tis the company, and not 

 the charge, that makes the feast ; " and such a companion you 

 prove : I thank you for it. 



But I will not compliment you out of the debt that I owe 

 you, and therefore I will begin my song, and wish it may be so 

 well liked : 



THE ANGLER'S SONG. 



As inward love breeds outward talk, 

 The hound some praise, and some the hawk ; 

 Some, better pleased with private sport, 

 Use tennis, some a mistress court : 



But these delights I neither wish 



Nor envy, while I freely fish. 



Who hunts, doth oft in danger ride jj 1 

 Who hawks lures oft both far and wide ; 

 Who uses games shall often prove 

 A loser ; but who falls in love 



Is fetter'd in fond Cupid's snare : 



My angle breeds me no such care. 



Of recreation there is none 

 So free as fishing is alone ; 

 All other pastimes do no less 

 Than mind and body both possess ; 



My hand alone my work can do, 



So I can fish and study too. 



I care not, I, to fish in seas, 



Fresh rivers best my mind do please, 



out a conjecture, that, as Walton had been silent upon the life of his 

 friend Chalkhill, he might be altogether a fictitious personage, and be only 

 a pseudonyme for Walton himself. This hint by subsequent writers has 

 been considered proof positive. Unfortunately John Chalkhill's tomb of 

 black marble is still to be seen on the walls of Winchester Cathedral, by 

 which it appears he died in May, 1679, at the age of eighty. Walton's 

 preface to Thealma speaks of him as dead in May, 1678 ; but, as the book 

 was not published till 1683, when Walton was ninety years old, it u 

 probably an error of memory. 



