316 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART I. 



Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains, 

 And peace still slumber by these purling fountains. 



Which we may every year 



Meet when we come a-fishing here. 



Pise. Trust me, scholar, I thank you heartily for these 

 verses ; they be choicely good, and doubtless made by a 

 lover of angling. Come, now, drink a glass to me, and I 

 will requite you with another very good copy: it is a 

 Farewell to the Vanities of the World, and some say, 

 written by Sir Harry Wotton, 1 who I told you was an 

 excellent angler. But let them be writ by whom they 

 will, he that writ them had a brave soul, and must needs 

 be possessed with happy thoughts at the time of their 

 composure. 



Farewell ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles ! 

 Farewell ye honour' d rags, ye glorious bubbles ! 

 Fame's but a hollow echo ; Gold, pure clay ; 

 Honour, the darling but of one short day ; 

 Beauty, th' eye's idol, but a damask'd skin ; 

 State, but a golden prison, to live in 

 And torture free-born minds : Embroider'd trains 

 Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins : 

 And blood ally'd to greatness, is alone 

 Inherited, not purchas'd, nor our own. 



Fame, Honour, Beauty, State, Train, Blood, and Birth, 



Are but the fading blossoms of the earth. 



I would be great, but that the sun doth still 

 Level his rays against the rising hill : 

 I would be high, but see the proudest oak 

 Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke : 

 I would be rich, but see men too unkind, 

 Dig in the bowels of the richest mind : 2 

 I would be wise, but that I often see 

 The fox suspected, whilst the ass goes free : 

 I would be fair, but see the fair and proud 

 Like the bright sun oft setting in a cloud : 



1 They are said to have been written by Sir Walter Raleigh, while 

 prisoner in the tower, a short time before his execution. See his Life. 

 BROWNE. The last stanza seems hardly consistent with the situation of 

 Sir Walter Raleigh ; though it may not unaptly apply to the happy 

 retreat of Sir Henry Wotton, at Eton, after a life of great experience in 

 court-intrigue, falsehood, and disappointment. C. 



2 Mine. H. 



