Such as to body, foul or fame,
Create no fickness, fin or fhame.
Rofes not fenc'd with pricks grow here,
No fting to th' honey-bag is near.
But, what's perhaps their prejudice,
They difficulty want and price.
An obvious rod, a twift of hair,
With hook hid in an infect, are
Engines of fport, would fit the wifh
O'th' Epicure and fill his dish.
In this clear stream let fall a grub,
And straight take up a Dace or Chub.
I'th' mud your worm provokes a fnig,
Which being faft, if it prove big
The Gotham folly will be found
Difcreet, ere ta'en fhe must be drown'd.
The Tench, phyfician of the brook,
In yon dead hole expects your hook,
Which having firft your paftime been,
Serves me for meat or medicine.
Ambush'd behind that root doth stay
A Pike, to catch and be a prey.
The treacherous quill in this flow stream
Betrays the hunger of a Bream,
And at that nimbler ford, no doubt,
Your falfe fly cheats a fpeckled Trout.
When you these creatures wifely chufe
To practise on, which to your use
Owe their creation, and when
Fish from your arts do refcue men;
To plot, delude, and circumvent,
Enfnare and spoil, is innocent.
Here by these crystal streams you may
Preferve a confcience clear as they;
And when by fullen thoughts you find
Your harraffed, not bufied, mind
In fable melancholy clad,
Distemper'd, serious, turning fad ;
Hence fetch your cure, caft in your bait,
All anxious thoughts and cares will straight
Fly with fuch speed, they'll feem to be
Poffeft with the Hydrophobic.
The water's calmnefs in your breast,
And smoothness on your brow fhall reft.
Away with sports of charge and noise,
And give me cheap and filent joys:
Such as Alteon's game pursue,
Their fate oft makes the tale feem true.
The fick or fullen hawk to-day
Flies not; to-morrow, quite away.
Patience and purfe to cards and dice
Too oft are made a facrifice :
The daughter's dower, th' inheritance
O'th' fon, 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 fapless tree,
'Bout which the ivy twin'd you fee,
His fate's foretold, who fondly places
His blifs in woman's foft embraces,
All pleafures, but the angler's, bring
I'th' tail repentance like a fting.
Then on the banks let me fit down,
Free from the toilfome fword and gown,
And pity those that do affect
To conquer nations and protect,
My reed affords fuch true content,
Delights fo fweet and innocent,
As feldom fall unto the lot
My most ingenious FRIEND'S BOOK,
The COMPLETE ANGLER.
E that both knew and writ the lives of
Such as were once, but must not be agen: Witness his matchless Donne and Wotton, by. Whose aid he could their speculations try: He that convers'd with angels, fuch as were Ouldfworth and Featly †, each a fhining star Shewing the way to Bethlem; each a faint; Compar❜d to whom, our zealots now but paint. He that our pious and learned Morley § knew, And from him fuck'd wit and devotion too.
* Dr. Richard Holdsworth. See ap account of him in the Faft. Oxon. 207; and in Ward's Lives of the Gresham Profeffors.
Dr. Daniel Featly, for whom fee Athen. Oxon. 603.
Dr. George Morley, bifhop of Winchefter.
He that from thefe fuch 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 feveral drefs each foul was clad.
Reader, this He, this fifherman, comes forth, And in his fifhers weeds would fhroud his worth,
Now his mute harp is on a willow hung,
With which when finely touch'd, and fitly strung,
He could friend's paffions for these times allay,
Or chain his fellow anglers from their prey.
But now the mufick of his pen is still,
And he fits by a brook watching a quill:
Where with a fixt eye, and a ready hand,
He studies firft to hook, and then to land
Some Trout, or Pearch, or Pike; and having
done,
Sits on a bank, and tells how this was won,
And that escap'd his hook; which with a wile
Did eat the bait, and fisherman beguile.
Thus whilst some vex 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.
Ad Virum optimum, & Pifcatorem pertiffimum,
ISAACUM WALTONUM.
MAgifter artis doute piscatoriæ,
Waltone falve, magne dux arundinis,
Seu tu reductâ valle folus ambulas,
Præterfluentes interim obfervans aquas,
Seu fortè puri ftans in amnis margine,
Sive in tenaci gramine & ripâ fedens,
Fallis perita fquameum pecus manu;
O te beatum! qui procul negotiis,
Forique & urbis pulvere & ftrepitu carens,
Extraque turbam, ad lenè manantes aquas
Vagos honefta fraude pifces decipis.
Dum cætera ergo pænè gens mortalium
Aut retia invicem fibi && technas ftruunt,
Donis, ut bamo, aut divites captant fenes,
Gregi natantúm tu interim nectis dolos,
Voracem inefcas advenam hamo lucium,
Avidamvè percam parvulo alburno capis,
Aut verme ruffo, mufculâ aut truttam levi,
Cautumvè cyprinum, & ferè indocilem capi
Calamoque linoque ars at bunc fuperat tua,
Medicamvè tincam, gobium aut escâ trahis,
Gratum palato gobium, parvum licet,
Prædamvè, non æque falubrem barbulum,
Etfi ampliorem, & myftace infignem gravi.
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