210 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [part i. 



Command bare heads, bow'd knees ; strike justice dumb. 



As well as blind and lame ; or give a tongue 



To stones by epitaphs ; be call'd " great master" 



In the loose rhymes of every poetaster? 



Could I be more than any man that lives, 



Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives ; 



Yet I more freely would these gifts resign, 



Than ever fortune would have made them mine ; 



And hold one minute of this holy leisure 



Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure. 



Welcome, pure thoughts; welcome, ye silent groves; 

 These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves. 

 Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing 

 My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring : 

 A pray'r-book, now, shall be my looking-glass. 

 In which I will adore sweet virtue's face. 

 Here dwell no hateful looks^ no palace cares, 

 No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-fac'd fears 

 Then here I'll sit, and sigh my hot love's folly, 

 And learn t' affect an holy melancholy : 



And if contentment be a stranger then, 



I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven, again. 



Venator. Well, Master, these verses be worthy to keep a 

 room in every man's memory, I thank you for them ; and I 

 thank you for your many instructions, which, God willing, I will 

 not forget.^ And as St Austin, in his Confessions,* commemo- 

 rates the kindness of his friend Verecundus, for lending him and 

 his companion a country house, because there they rested and 

 enjoyed themselves, free from the troubles of the world, so,* 

 having had the like advantage, both by your conversation and the 

 art you have taught me, I ought ever to do the like ; for, indeed, 



VARIATIONS. 



* In the _;?rj^ edition Venator proceeds : "Your company and discourse have been so 

 pleasant, that I may truly say, I have only lived since I enjoyed you and them and 

 turned Angler. I am sorry to part with you here, here in this place where I first met 

 you, but it must be so. I shall long for the ninth of May, for then we are to. meet at 

 Charles Brandon's. This intermitted time, will seem to me as it does to men in sorrow, 

 to pass slowly;, but I will hasten it as fast as I can by my wishes, and in the meantime 

 the blessing of Saint Peter's Master be with mine ;" to which Piscator replies, *' And 

 the like be upon my honest scholar, and upon all that hate contentions, and love quiet- 

 ness and virtue and angling." 



* because -there they rested themselves from the troubles of the world. — ^dmid ^d 

 edit. 



So that the place wherein they did sit» 



With gold it was covered, every whit. 



The gentlemen, then, having dropt all their store. 



Said, " Now, beggar, hold, for we have no more ; 



Thou hast fulfilled thy promise aright.'* 



*' Then marry my girl, quoth he to the knight ; 



*' And here," added he, I will now throw you down 



A hundred pounds more, to buy her a gown." 



The neighbourhood of Bethnal Green is seldom without a public-house with a sign 

 representing The Beggar^ and the Dissitaders of the match, dropping gold; the young 

 Woman, and the Knight her lover, standing between them. — H. 



* Book iv. chap. 3. The passage to which Walton alludes will be found in a transla- 

 tion of the Life of St Augustine, printed for John Crook, and sold at the sign of the Ship 

 in St Paul's Churchyard, i65o, lib. g, cap. 3. 



