390 PEOSE HALLETTTICS. 



Sir thief, you 're nabb'd, and held quite fast — 



These bracelets are my seal ; 

 Tour wrists secured, I find at last 



Afiff-leafioT my eel. 



The recognized difficulty of retaining an eel in the hand, 

 has heen the subject of several epigrams, both ancient 

 and modem. A Latin one by Gesner, in which he com- 

 pares man's abortive attempt to hold it, to his equally in- 

 secure tenure of life, is not by any means the worst. 



How mobile, fleet, and uncontroll'd, 



Glides life's uncertain day ! 

 Who clings to it, but grasps an eel, 



That quicker slips away. 



' To fish for eels/ eyx'^^'''! dtfpaaOai, is a Greek term 

 of political as well as piscatorial import, implying not 

 only to catch eels by fouling the stream, but to disturb 

 a state for the purposes of aggrandisement : the following 

 epigram, 'in ditescentes publico malo' (against those 

 who enrich themselves at the public expense), occurs in 

 Alciatus' ' Emblems :' — 



As wily anglers sniggling eels 



The approved device employ. 

 To foul the current as it flows, 



And myriads thus destroy ; 

 So knaves, who starve when aU is calm. 



And peaceful glides the state. 

 Procure them loaves, and fishes too. 



Soon as they agitate. 



