Which, having first your pastime been,
Serves then for meat or medicine.
Ambush'd behind that root doth stay
A pike; to catch, and be a prey.
The treacherous quill in this slow stream
Betrays the hunger of a bream.
And at that nimble ford, no doubt,
Your false fly cheats a speckled trout.

When you these creatures wisely choose

To practise on, which to your use
Owe their creation, and when
Fish from your arts do rescue men,
To plot, delude, and circumvent,
Ensnare, and spoil, is innocent.
Here by these crystal streams you may
Preserve a conscience clear as they;
And when by sullen thoughts you find
Your harassed, not busied, mind
In sable melancholy clad,

Distemper'd, serious, turning sad;
Hence fetch your cure, cast in your bait,
All anxious thoughts and cares will straight
Fly with such speed, they 'll seem to be
Possess'd with the hydrophobie:

The water's calmness in your breast,
And smoothness on your brow, shall rest.
Away with sports of charge and noise,
And give me cheap and silent joys;
Such as Acteon's game pursue,
Their fate oft makes the tale seem true.
The sick or sullen hawk, to-day,
Flies not; to-morrow, quite away.
Patience and purse to cards and dice
Too oft are made a sacrifice:

The daughter's dower, th' inheritance
O' th' son, depend on one mad chance.
The harms and mischiefs which th' abuse
Of wine doth every day produce,
Make good the doctrine of the Turks,
That in each grape a devil lurks.
And by yon fading sapless tree,
'Bout which the ivy twined you see,
His fate's foretold, who fondly places
His bliss in woman's soft embraces :
All pleasures, but the angler's, bring
I' the tail repentance, like a sting.

Then on these banks let me sit down,
Free from the toilsome sword and gown;
And pity those that do affect
To conquer nations and protect.
My reed affords such true content,
Delights so sweet and innocent,
As seldom fall unto the lot

Of sceptres, though they're justly got.
1649

THO. WEAVER, Master of Arts.

TO THE READERS

OF MY MOST INGENUOUS FRIEND'S BOOK, "THE COMPLETE ANGLER.*
He that both knew and writ the Lives of men,
Such as were once, but must not be again;
Witness his matchless Donne and Wotton, by
Whose aid he could their speculations try:
He that conversed with angels, such as were
Ouldsworth and Featly,† each a shining star
Shewing the way to Bethlem; each a saint,
Compared to whom our zealots, now, but paint:
He that our pious and learn'd Morley knew,
And from him suck'd wit and devotion too:
He that from these such excellencies fetch'd,
That He could tell how high and far they reach'd;
What learning this, what graces th' other had.
And in what several dress each soul was clad:
Reader, this He, this fisherman, comes forth,
And in these fisher's weeds would shroud his worth.
Now his mute harp is on a willow hung,

With which, when finely touch'd and fitly strung,
He could friends' passions for these times allay,
Or chain his fellow anglers from their prey.
But now the music of his pen is still,
And he sits by a brook watching a quill,
Where with a fix'd eye and a ready hand,

He studies first to hook, and then to land

Some Trout, or Perch, or Pike; and having done,
Sits on a bank, and tells how this was won,

And that escaped his hook, which with a wile

Did eat the bait, and fisherman beguile.

Thus whilst some vex'd they from their lands are thrown,
He joys to think the waters are his own;
And like the Dutch, he gladly can agree

To live at peace now, and have fishing free.
April 3, 1650.

EDV. POWELL, Master of Arts.

TO MY DEAR BROTHER, MR IZAAK WALTON,

ON HIS COMPLETE ANGLER.

THIS book is so like you, and you like it,

For harmless mirth, expression, art, and wit,
That I protest, ingenuously 'tis true,

I love this mirth, art, wit, the book, and you.

LAUDATORUM CARMINA.

ROB. FLOUD, C.

CLARISSIMO AMICISSIMOQUE FRATRI, DOMINO ISAACO WALTON,
ARTIS PISCATORIÆ PERITISSIMO.

UNICUS est medicus reliquorum piscis, et istis,
Fas quibus est medicum tangere, certa salus.

Dr Richard Holdsworth. See an account of him in the Fasti Oxon. 207

and in Ward's Lives of the Gresham Professors.

+ Dr Daniel Featly, for whom see Athen. Ozon. 603,

Dr George Morley, bishop of Winchester.

Hic typus est salvatoris mirandus JESU,
* Litera mysterium quælibet hujus habet.
Hunc cupio, hunc capias (bone frater arundinis,)
+ Solveret hic pro mne debita, teque Deo. [x
Piscis is est, et piscator, mihi credito, qualem
Vel piscatorem piscis amare velit.

HENRY BAILEY, Artium Magister.

AD VIRUM OPTIMUM ET PISCATOREM PERITISSIMUM,

ISAACUM WALTONUM.

MAGISTER artis docte piscatoriæ,
Waltone, salve! magne dux arundinis,
Seu tu reducta valle solus ambulas,
Præterfluentes interim observans aquas.
Seu fortè puri stans in amnis margine,
Sive in tenaci gramine et ripâ sedens,
Fallis peritâ squameum pecus manu;
O te beatum! qui procul negotiis,
Forique et urbis pulvere et strepitu carens,
Extraque turbam, ad lenè manantes aquas
Vagos honestà fraude pisces decipis.
Dum cætera ergo penè gens mortalium
Aut retia invicem sibi et technas struunt,
Donis, ut hamo, aut Divites captant senes;
Gregi natantûm tu interim nectis dolos,
Voracem inescas advenam hamo lucium,
Avidamvè percam parvulo alburno capis,
Aut verme ruffo, musculâ aut truttam levi,
Cautumve cyprinum, et ferè indocilem capi
Calamoque linoque, ars et hunc superat tua;
Medicamvè tincam, gobium aut escâ trahis,
Gratum palato gobium, parvum licèt;
Prædamvè, non æque salubrem barbulum,
Etsi ampliorem, et mystace insignem gravi.
Hæ sunt tibi artes, dum annus et tempus sinunt,
Et nulla transit absque lineâ dies.

Nec sola praxis, sed theoria et tibi

Nota artis hujus ; unde tu simul bonus

Piscator, idem et scriptor; et calami potens
Utriusque necdum et ictus, et tamen sapis.
Ut hamiotam nempe tironem instruas!

Stylo eleganti scribis en Halieutica
Oppianus alter, artis et methodum tuæ, et
Præcepta promis ritè piscatoria,

Varias et escas piscium, indolem, et genus.
Nec tradere artem sat putas piscariam
(Virtutis est hæc et tamen quædam schola
Patientiamque et temperantiam docet ;)
Documenta quin majora das, et regulas
Sublimioris artis, et perennia

Monimenta morum, vitæ et exempla optima;
Dum tu profundum scribis Hookerum, et pium

Donnum ac disertum; sanctum et Herbertum, sacrum
Vatem; hos videmus nam penicillo tuo

Graphicè, et peritâ, Isaace, depictos manu.
Post fata factos hosce per te Virbios ! *
O quæ voluptas est legere in scriptis tuis!
Sic tu libris nos, lineis pisces capis,
Musisque litterisque dum incumbis, licet
Intentus hamo, interque piscandum studes.

ALIUD

AD ISAACUM WALTONUM,

VIRUM ET PISCATOREM OPTIMUM.

ISAACE, Macte hác arte piscatoriâ;
Hac arte Petrus principi censum dedit;
Hac arte princeps nec Petro multo prior,
Tranquillus ille, teste Tranquillo,† pater
Patriæ, solebat recreare se lubens
Augustus, hamo instructus ac arundine.
Tu nunc, Amice, proximum clari es decus
Post Cæsarem hami, gentis ac Halieutica:
Euge, O professor, artis haud ingloriæ,
Doctor cathedræ, perlegens piscariam !
Næ tu magister, et ego discipulus tuus,
Nam candidatum et me ferunt arundinis,
Socium hac in arte nobilem nacti sumus.
Quid amplius, Waltone, nam dici potest?
Ipse hamiota Dominus en orbis fuit!

JACO. DUP. D. D.

"Virbius, quasi bis vir," is an epithet applied to Hippolytus, because he was by Diana Restored to life after his death. Vide Ovidii Met. lib. xv. v. 536. et seq. Hoffmanni “ Lexicon Universale," art. Virbius. In this place it is meant to express, that by Walton's skill in biography, those persons whose lives he has written are so accurately represented, as that, even after their deaths, they are again, as it were, brought to life.

+i. e. Suetonius Tranquillus.

The contracting of surnames is a faulty practice; the above might stand for "Duppa," but signifies "Duport." This person was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Professor of Greek in that University. His father, John, had a hand in the translation of King James's Bible. - Fuller's Ch. Hist. book x. p. 46. Dr James Duport wrote also the Latin verses preceding these; and both copies are extant in a volume of Latin poems by him, entitled Musæ Subsecivæ," printed at Cambridge, in 8vo. 1676.