FISH-FISHING.

BLEST silent groves! O may ye be
For ever mirth's best nursery!
May pure contents

For ever pitch their tents

Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains,

And peace still slumber by these purling fountains, Which we may every year

Find when we come a-fishing here.-Sir W. Raleigh.

A day with not too bright a beam,
A warm but not a scorching sun,
A southern gale to curl the stream,
And, master, half our work is done.
There, whilst behind some bush we wait,
The scaly people to betray,

We'll prove it just, with treacherous bait,
To make the preying trout our prey.
And think ourselves, in such an hour,
Happier than those, though not so high,
Who, like leviathans, devour

Of meaner men the smaller fry.-Izaak Walton.

The morning is beaming,
Its first light is streaming

On the crests of the clouds, with its beauty they glow;
And soon will it brighten

Those dark cliffs, and lighten

The foam of the ocean-waves breaking below.

When it comes they will get up,
Their sails they will set up,

And o'er the wide sea steer their shallop away;
Then follow their calling

Of fishing, or trawling

In peril and hardship, the rest of the day.

A perilous life, and sad as life may be,
Hath the line fisher on the lonely sea.

B. Barton.

Procter.

EVERY one that flatters thee,
Is no friend in misery.
Words are easy like the wind;
Faithful friends are hard to find.
Every man will be thy friend,
Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend;
But if store of crowns be scant,
No man will supply thy want,
If that one be prodigal,
Bountiful they will him call;
And with such like flattering,
"Pity but he were a king."

Shakspere.

Ben Jonson.

Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant;
Of all tame-a flatterer.

Give me flattery,

Flattery the food of courts, that I may rock him, And lull him in the down of his desires.

Beaumont.

Parent of wicked, bane of honest deeds,
Pernicious flatt'ry, thy malignant seeds
In an ill hour, and by a fatal hand,
Sadly diffused o'er virtue's gleby land,
With rising pride amidst the corn appear,
And choke the hopes and harvest of the year.

Beware of flatt'ry, 't is a flow'ry weed,
Which oft offends the very idol vice,
Whose shrine it would perfume.

Learn to win a lady's faith,
Nobly as the thing is high;
Bravely as for life and death
With a loyal gravity.

Lead her from the festive boards,
Point her to the starry skies,
Guard her by your truthful words,
Pure from courtship's flatteries.

Prior.

Fenton.

E. B. Browning.

FLOWERS.

FLOWERS.

Go, mark the matchless working of the Power
That shuts within the seed the future flower;
Bids these in elegance of form excel,

In colour these, and those delight the smell;
Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies,
To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.

301

Cowper. They bring me tales of youth, and tones of love; And 't is, and ever was, my wish and way To let all flowers live freely, and all die, Whene'er their genius bids their souls depart, Among their kindred in their native place. I never pluck the rose; the violet's head Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank, And not reproached me; the ever sacred cup Of the pure lily hath, between my hands, Felt safe, unsoil'd, nor lost one grain of gold.

Walter S. Landor.

In Eastern lands they talk in flowers,
And they tell in a garland their loves and cares;
Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers,
On its leaves a mystic.language bears;

Then gather a wreath from the garden bowers,
And tell the wish of thy heart in flowers.

Percival.

Flowers are love's truest language.—Park Benjamin.

And then I love the field-flowers too,
Because they are a blessing given

E'en to the poorest little one,

That wanders 'neath the vault of heaven.

The garden-flowers are reared for few,
And to that few belong alone;

But flowers that spring by vale or stream,
Each one may claim them for his own.

The flower ripens in its place,

Ann Pratt.

Ripens, and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.

Tennyson.

302

FOOL.

FOOL-FOLLY.

As I do live by food, I met a fool,
Who laid him down, and bask'd him in the sun,
Who rail'd on lady fortune in good terms,
In good set terms-and yet a motley fool.
Shakspere.

He, whom a fool doth very wisely hit,
Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
Not to seem senseless of the bob. If not,
The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd
Even by the squandering glances of the fool.

This fellow's wise enough to play the fool,
And to do that well craves a kind of wit.

As the most forward bud

Is eaten by the canker e'er it blow,

Shakspere.

Shakspere.

Even so, by love, the young and tender wit
Is turned to folly.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Nothing exceeds in ridicule, no doubt,
A fool in fashion, but a fool that's out;
His passion for absurdity's so strong,
He cannot bear a rival in the wrong.

Shakspere.

Pope.

Though wrong the mode, comply: more sense is shown
In wearing others' follies than our own.

'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool,
And scarce in human wisdom to do more.

Young.

Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die!

Young.

On Folly's lips eternal tattlings dwell;

Wisdom speaks little, but that little well.

So lengthening shades the sun's decline betray,

But shorter shadows mark meridian day.

Bishop.

Folly, as it grows in years,
The more extravagant appears.

Butler.

FOOLS ne'er had less grace in a year,
For wise men are grown foppish;
And know not how their wits to wear,
Their manners are so apish.

303

Shakspere.

Some positive, persisting fops we know,
Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so;
But you with pleasure own your errors past,
And make each day a critique on the last.-Pope.

Nature made every fop to plague his brother,
Just as one beauty mortifies another.

Fops take a world of pains To prove that bodies may exist sans brains; The former so fantastically dress'd,

The latter's absence may be safely guess'd.

Pope.

Churchill.

FORBEARANCE.

TRUE nobleness would

Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.

Shakspere.

I pray you tarry, pause a day or two,
Before you hazard; for in choosing wrong
I lose your company; therefore forbear awhile.

Shakspere.

So angry wolves the combat do forbear,
When from the wood a lion doth appear.-Waller.

Forbearance is the lesson taught

In deed and word, in act and thought,

By that great Testament of love
Bequeathed by Him who from above
Came down to suffer, and to bear
The punishment for human sin;
And who shall hope his home to share,
And his eternal joy to win,

Who beareth and forbeareth not

In deed and word, in act and thought?

Anon.