COMMENDATORY VERSES. 37 



Which having first your pastime been, 

 Serves then for meat or medicine. 1 

 Ambush'd behind that root doth stay 

 A pike ; to catch and be a prey. 

 The treacherous quill in this slow stream 

 Betrays the hunger of a bream. 

 And that nimble ford, no doubt, 

 Your false fly cheats a speckled trout. 



When you these creatures wisely choose 

 To practise on, which to your use 

 Owe their creation, and when 

 Fish from your arts do rescue men, 

 To plot, delude, and circumvent, 

 Ensnare and spoil, is innocent. 

 Here by these crystal streams you may 

 Preserve a conscience clear as they ; 

 And when by sullen thoughts you find 

 Your harassed, not busied, mind 

 In sable melancholy clad, 

 Distemper'd, serious, turning sad ; 

 Hence fetch your cure, cast in your bait, 

 All anxious thoughts and cares will straight 

 Fly with such speed, they'll seem to be 

 Possest with the hydrophobie. 

 The water's calmness in your breast, 

 And smoothness on your brow shall rest. 



Away with sports of charge and noise, 

 And give me cheap and silent joys. 

 Such as Actseon's game pursue, 

 Their fate oft makes the tale seem true. 

 The sick or sullen hawk, to-day, 

 Flies not ; to-morrow quite away. 

 Patience and purse to cards and dice 

 Too oft are made a sacrifice : 

 The daughter's dower, th' inheritance 

 0' th' son, depend on one mad chance. 

 The harms and mischiefs which th' abuse 

 Of wine doth every day produce, 

 Make good the doctrine of the Turks, 

 That in each grape a devil lurks. 

 And by yon fading sapless tree, 

 'Bout which the ivy twin'd you see, 



1 The following four lines were here added to the second edition, but are 

 omitted in all the others : 



' ' And there the cunning carp you may 

 Beguile with paste ; if you'll but stay, 

 And watch in time, you'll have your wish, 

 For paste and patience catch this fish." 



