for faith and manners to their posterity. And the good old man, though he was very learned, yet knowing that God leads us not to heaven by many nor by hard questions, like an honest Angler, made that good, plain, unperplexed Catechism which is printed with our good old Service-book.

I say,

this good man was a dear lover, and constant practiser of Angling, as any age can produce; and his custom was to spend besides his fixed hours of prayer, those hours which by command of the Church were enjoined the clergy, and voluntarily dedicated to devotion by many primitive Christians: I say, besides those hours, this good man was observed to spend a tenth part of his time in Angling; and also, for I have conversed with those which have conversed with him, to bestow a tenth part of his revenue, and usually all his fish, amongst the poor that inhabited near to those rivers in which it was caught; saying often, "That Charity gave life to Religion:" and at his return to his house, would praise God he had spent that day free from worldly

trouble; both harmlessly, and in a recreation that became a churchman. And this good man was well content, if not desirous, that posterity should know he was an Angler, as may appear by his picture now to be seen, and carefully kept in Brazennose-College, to which he was a liberal benefactor; in which picture he is drawn leaning on a desk with his Bible before him, and on one hand of him his lines, hooks, and other tackling, lying in a round; and on his other hand are his Angle-rods of several sorts and by them this is written, "That "he died 13 Feb. 1601, being aged ninety-five years, forty-four of which he had been Dean of St. Paul's Church; and that his age had neither impaired his hearing, nor dimmed his eyes, nor weakened his memory, nor made any of the faculties of his mind "weak or useless." "Tis said that Angling and temperance were great causes of these blessings, and I wish the like to all that imitate him, and love the memory of so good a man.

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My next and last example shall be that undervaluer of money, the late Provost of Eton College, Sir Henry Wotton: a man with whom I have often fished and conversed, a man whose foreign employments in the service of this nation, and whose experience, learning, wit, and cheerfulness, made his company to be esteemed one of the delights of mankind. This man, whose very approbation of Angling were sufficient to convince any modest censurer of it, this man was also a most dear lover, and a frequent practiser of the art of Angling; of which

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he would say, 'Twas an employment for his idle “ time, which was then not idly spent : for Angling was, after tedious study, "a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a "calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness; and that "it begat habits of peace and patience in those "that professed and practised it.” Indeed, my friend, you will find Angling to be like the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit, and a world of other blessings attending upon it.

Sir, this was the saying of that learned man, and I do easily believe that peace, and patience, and a calm content, did cohabit in the cheerful heart of Sir Henry Wotton, because I know that when he was beyond seventy years of age, he made this description of a part of the present pleasure that possessed him, as he sat quietly in a Summer's evening on a bank a-fishing. It is " a description of the Spring," which, because it glided as soft and sweetly from his pen, as that river does at this time, by which it was then made, I shall repeat it unto you.

This day dame Nature seem'd in love:
The lusty sap began to move;
Fresh juice did stir th' embracing vines,
And birds had drawn their valentines.
The jealous Trout, that low did lie,
Rose at a well-dissembled fly:
There stood my friend with patient skill,
Attending of his trembling quill.

Already were the eaves possest
With the swift Pilgrim's daubed nest :
The groves already did rejoice,
In Philomel's triumphing voice:

The showers were short, the weather mild,
The morning fresh, the evening smil'd.
Joan takes her neat rubb'd pail, and now
She trips to milk the sand-red cow;

Where, for some sturdy foot-ball swain,
Joan strokes a syllabub or twain,
The fields and gardens were beset
With tulips, crocus, violet:

And now, though late, the modest rose
Did more than half a blush disclose.
Thus all looks gay, and full of cheer,
To welcome the new-livery'd year.

These were the thoughts that then possessed the undisturbed mind of Sir Henry Wotton. Will you hear the wish of another Angler, and the commendation of his happy life, which he also sings in verse? viz. Jo. Davors, Esq.;

Let me live harmlessly, and near the brink

Of Trent or Avon, have a dwelling-place; Where I may see my quill or cork down sink With eager bite of Perch, or Bleak, or Dace; And on the world and my Creator think :

Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods t' embrace; And others spend their time in base excess

Of wine, or worse, in war and wantonness.

Let them that list, these pastimes still pursue,

And on such pleasing fancies feed their fill, So I the fields and meadows green may view,

And daily by fresh rivers walk at will, Among the daisies and the violets blue, Red hyacinth, and yellow daffodil, Purple Narcissus like the morning rays Pale gander-grass, and azure culver-keys.

I count it higher pleasure to behold

The stately compass of the lofty sky,
And in the midst thereof, like burning gold,
The flaming chariot of the world's great eye;
The watery clouds that in the air up-roll'd,

With sundry kinds of painted colours fly;
And fair Aurora lifting up her head,
Still blushing, rise from old Tithonus' bed.

The hills and mountains raised from the plains,
The plains extended level with the ground;
The grounds divided into sundry veins,

The veins enclos'd with rivers running round;
These rivers making way through Nature's chains
With headlong course into the sea profound;

The raging sea, beneath the vallies low,
Where lakes, and rills, and rivulets, do flow.

The lofty woods, the forests wide and long,

Adorn'd with leaves, and branches fresh and green, In whose cool bowers the birds with many a song

Do welcome with their quire the Summer's Queen ;