76 THE. COMPLETE ANGLEE. [PART I. 



And first, what Du Bartas says of a fish called the sar- 

 gus ; l which, because none can express it better than he 

 does, I shall give you in his own words ; supposing it 

 shall not have the less credit for being verse ; for he hath 

 gathered this, and other observations, out of authors that 

 have been great and industrious searchers into the secrets 

 of nature. 



The adult'rous sargus doth not only change 



Wives every day, in the deep streams : but, strange ! 



As if the honey of sea-love delight 



Could not suffice his ranging appetite, 



Goes courting she-goats on the grassy shore, 



Horning their husbands that had horns before. 



And the same author writes, concerning the cantharus, 

 that which you shall also hear in his own words : 



But, contrary, the constant cantharus 

 Is ever constant to his faithful spouse 

 In nuptial duties, spending his chaste life ; 

 Never loves any but his own dear wife. 



Sir, but a little longer, and I have done. 



Ten. Sir, take what liberty you think fit, for your dis- 

 course seems to be music, and charms me to an attention. 



Pise. Why then, sir, I will take a liberty to tell, or rather 

 to remember you what is said of TURTLE-DOVES ; first, that 

 they silently plight their troth, and marry ; and that then 

 the survivor scorns, as the Thracian woman are said to do, 

 to outlive his or her mate ; (and this is taken for a truth ;) 

 and if the survivor shall ever couple with another, then, not 

 only the living but the dead, be it either the he or the she, 

 is denied the name and honour of a true turtle-dove. 2 



And to parallel this land-rarity and to teach mankind 



1 Du Bartas's account of the Sargus is taken from Oppian's Halieutics, 

 Book iv. 



2 -Of Swans, it is also said, that, if either of a pair die, or be otherwise 

 separated from its mate, the other does not long survive ; and that it is 

 chiefly for this reason, that the stealing of swans is by our law made penal ; 

 so as that, "He who stealeth a swan, in an open and common river, law- 

 fully marked : the same swan shall be hung in a house by the beak ; and 

 he who stole it shall, in recompence thereof, give to the owner so much 

 wheat as may cover all the swan, by putting and turning the wheat upon 

 the head of the swan, until the head of the swan be covered with wheat." 

 Coke's " Reports, " Part vii. The case of Swans. H. , 



