THE LITERATURE OF FLY FISHING. 199 



And now farewell Dove, where I've caught 



such brave Dishes 

 Of over-grown, golden, and silver-scaled 



Fishes ; 

 Thy Trout and thy Gr ailing may now feed 



securely, 

 I've left none behind me can take 'em so 



surely ; 

 Feed on then, and breed on, untill the next 



year. 

 But if I return I expect my arrear. 



Cotton, I think, wrote better verse than 

 prose. His prose is a little thin, and you feel 

 it would have been better had he let himself go. 

 In his verse he does so, sometimes no doubt to 

 a, degree which is not amusing but simply 

 disgusting : but a great deal of it is vigorous 

 and agreeable. On the other hand his prose, 

 though clear and efficient, lacks colour. Still 

 his book remains the best ever written on fly 

 fishing. 



Sir Henry Wotton, sometime Provost of Eton 

 College, was an even better poet. He is chiefly 

 famous for his epigram, that an Ambassador is 

 an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of 

 his country. Which unluckily came to the ear 

 of his royal master James I., who was very 

 angry, and Wotton nearly lost his post of 

 Ambassador at Venice. Which would have 

 served him right ; for you should not make jokes 

 when your employer is a king who has no sense 

 of humour. 



