188 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART I. 



for I could there sit 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 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 exprest it, 



IIil ! bleu esute of lowliness ; 



Happy enjoyments of uch minds 

 As. rich in self-contented ness, 



Can, like the reeds, in roughen winds, 

 By yielding make that blow but small 

 At which proud oaks and cedars fall. 



but Lord Burlington was ever delighted in the view of bis roost elegant villa at 

 Cblswidu 



But that excellent moralist, Dr. Francis Hotcheson, late of Glasgow, has a 

 paasage to this purpose, which is a much better comment on this reflection than 

 any we can five : " As often," says he, " as the more important offices of virtue 

 allow any intervals, our time is arreeably and honorably employed in history, 

 natural or civil ; in geometry, astronomy, poetry, painting, and music ; or such 

 entertainments as ingenious arts afford. And some of the swcttest enjoyments 

 of this sort require no property ; nor need we ever want the objects. If fami- 

 liarity abate* the pleasure of the more obvious beauties of nature, their more 

 exquisite inward structures may give new delights, and the stores of nature 

 are incxhautiHe." See hit tyttem of Moral Philosophy, book 1. chap. 7. 



