180 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



Saviour said, that the meek possess the earth ; or rather, they 

 enjoy what the others possess and enjoy not: for anglers and 

 meek, quiet-spirited men are free from those high, those restless 

 thoughts, which corrode the sweets of life ; and they, and they 

 only, can say, as the poet has happily expressed it : 



Hail ! bless'd estate of lowliness ! 



Happy enjoyments of such minds 

 As, rich in self contentedness, 



Can, like the reeds, in roughest winds, 

 By yielding make that blow but small, 

 At which proud oaks and cedars fall. 



There came also into my mind at that time, certain verses in 

 praise of a mean estate and an humble mind : they were written 

 by Phineas Fletcher, * an excellent divine, and an excellent 

 angler ; and the author of excellent Piscatory Eclopttes, in which 

 you shall see the picture of this good man's mind ; and I wish 

 mine to be like it. 



* Phineas Fletcher was fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and the 

 author of a fine allegorical poem, entitled the Purple Island, printed at 

 Cambridge, with other of his poems, in 4to. 1633. 



The innocence of angling, the delightful scenes with which it is conver- 

 sant, and its associated pleasures of ease, retirement, and meditation, have 

 been a motive to the introduction of a new species of eclogue, where 

 fishers are actors, as shepherds are in the pastoral. 



Of those who have attempted this kind of poetry, the above mentioned 

 Mr Fletcher is one ; and in the same volume with the Purple Island are 

 several poems, which he calls Piscatory Eclogues, from whence the follow- 

 ing passage is extracted : 



Ah ! would thou knew'st how much it better were 



To bide among the simple fisher swains ! 

 No shrieking owl, no night-crow lodgeth here, 

 Nor is our simple pleasure mix'd with pains t. 

 Our sports begin with the beginning year, 

 In calms to pull the leaping fish to land ; 

 In roughs to sing, and dance along the golden sand, 



I have a pipe which once thou lovedst well, 



(Was never pipe that gave a better sound,) 

 Which oft to hear, fair Thetis, from her cell 



Thetis, the queen of seas, attended round 

 With hundred nymphs, and many powers that dwell. 

 In th' ocean's rocky walls came up to hear, 

 And gave me gifts, which still for thee lie hoarded here. 



Here, with sweet bays, the lovely myrtle* grow, 



Where the ocean's fair-cheek "d maidens oft repair ; 

 Here, to my pipe, they danced on a row, 



No other swain may come to note they're fair ; 

 Yet my Amyntas there with me shall go. 

 Proteus himself pipes to his flocks hereby, 

 Whom thou shall hear, ne'er seen by any jealous eye. EC. I. 



And besides Mr Phineas Fletcher, a gentleman now living, (1784,) the 

 Reverend Mr Moses Browne, has obliged the world with Pitcatory 

 Eclogues, which I would recommend to all lovers of poetry and angling; 

 and I am much mistaken if the fifth of them, entitled Rennock't Despair, 

 is not by far the best imitation of Milton's Lycidas that has ever yet 

 appeared. 



