ANCIENT AND MODERN PISHING-. 11 



The hils and mountains raised from tlie plains, 

 The plains extended leveU with the ground, 



The ground divided into sundry vains. 



The vains enclosed with running rivers round ; 



The rivers making way through nature's chains. 

 With headlong course into the sea profound ; 



The surging sea beneath the vallies low. 



The vallies sweet, and lakes that lovely flow; 



The lofty woods, the forests wide and long, 

 Adorn'd with leaves and branches fresh and green, 



In whose cool brows the birds with chanting song 

 Do welcome vpith their quire the Summer's Queen ; 



The meadows fair, where Mora's guifts among 

 Aje intermixt vpith verdant grass between ; 



The silver skaled fish, that softly swim 



Within the brooks and crystaU watry brim : 



All these, and many more of His creation. 



That made the heavens, the angler oft doth see. 



And takes therein no little delectation 



To think how strange and wonderfull they bee, 



Framing thereof an inward contemplation. 

 To set his thoughts on other fancies free; 



And while he looks on these with joyftd eye. 



His mind is^rapt above the starry skie. 



Such being the high calling of angling, no wonder if 

 much be expected of one who professes it. The same 

 writer accordingly claims for a real adept, this whole 

 catalogue of Christian virtues, — faith, hope, charity, 

 patience, humOity, courage, liberality, knowledge, peace- 

 ableness, and temperance; while another worthy amateur 

 gives the following finished account of his inner man, 

 though, unlike Oppian, they both leave the outer man 

 unsung : — ' A skilful angler ought to be a scholar, to 

 know how either to write or discourse of his art in true 

 and fitting terms without either affectation or rudeness ; 

 he should have sweetness of speech, to entice others to 

 delight in an exercise so much laudable ; he should have 

 strength of argument, to defend and maintain his profes- 



