72 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART I. 



well : 1 thank you for it, and so doth my friend Peter, or 

 else he is to blame. 



Peter. Yes, and so I do ; we all thank you : and, when 

 we have supped, I will get my friend Condon to sing you 

 a song for requital. 



Cor. I will sing a song, if any body will sing another : 

 else, to be plain with you, I will sing none : I am none of 

 those that sing for meat, but for company : I say, ' Tis 

 merry in hall, when men sing all. 1 



Pise. I'll promise you I'll sing a song that was lately 

 made, at my request, by Mr. William Basse ; one that 

 hath made the choice songs of the Hunter in his career, 

 and of Tom of Bedlam* and many others of note ; and 

 this, that I will sing, is in praise of angling. 



Cor. And then mine shall be the praise of a Country- 

 man's life. What will the rest sing of? 



Peter. I will promise you, I will sing another song in 

 praise of Angling to-morrow night ; for we will not part 

 till then ; but fish to-morrow, and sup together : and the 

 next day every man leave fishing, and fall to his business. 



Yen. Tis a match ; and I will provide you a song or a 

 catch against then, too, which shall give some addition 

 of mirth to the company ; for we will be civil and as 

 merry as beggars. 



Pise. Tis a match, my masters. Let's e'en say grace, 



(1) Parody en the adage, 



4 It's merry in hall, 



When beards wag all.' 

 i. e when all are eatiog. 



() This song, beginning "Forth from my sad and darksome cell," with the 

 tatuic to it, set by Hen. Lawes, is printed in a book entitled Choice Ayres, 

 Songt, and Dialogues, tu ring to the Theorbo, Lute, and Bass Viol, folio, 

 1^75; and in Piayfbrd's Antidote against Melancholy, 8vo. 1669; also in Or. 

 Percy's Reliqucs of Ancient English Poetry , Vol. II. p. 35? ; but in the latter 

 with a mistake, in the last line of the third stanza, of the word Pentarckye 

 for Pentateuch. 



