THE ANGLER'S SONG.

As inward love breeds outward talk,

The Hound some praise, and some the Hawk :
Some better pleas'd with private sport

Use Tennis, some a Mistress court:
But these delights I neither wish,
Nor envy, while I freely fish.

Who Hunts, doth oft in danger ride;
Who Hawks, lures oft both far and wide;
Who uses Games shall often prove
A loser; but who falls in love,

Is fettered in fond Cupid's snare:
My Angle breeds me no such care.

Of recreation there is none
So free as Fishing is alone;

All other pastimes do no less
Than mind and body both possess :
My hand alone my work can do,
So I can fish and study too.

I care not, I, to fish in seas,

Fresh rivers best my mind do please,
Whose sweet calm course I contemplate,

And seek in life to imitate:

In civil bounds I fain would keep,
And for my past offences weep.

N

And when the timorous Trout I wait

To take, and he devours my bait,
How poor a thing sometimes I find
Will captivate a greedy mind:

And when none bite, I praise the wise,
Whom vain allurements ne'er suprise.

But yet, though while I fish I fast;
I make good fortune my repast,
And thereunto my friend invite,
In whom I more than that delight:
Who is more welcome to my dish,
Than to my angle was my fish.

As well content no prize to take,
As use of taken prize to make:
For so our Lord was pleased when
He fishers made fishers of men :

Where, which is in no other game,
A man may fish and praise his name.

The first men that our Saviour dear
Did choose to wait upon him here,
Blest fishers were, and fish the last
Food was, that he on earth did taste.
I therefore strive to follow those,
Whom he to follow him hath chose.

COR. Well sung Brother, you have paid your debt in good coin; we Anglers are all beholden to

the good man that made this song. Come Hostess, give us more Ale, and let's drink to him.

And now let's every one go to bed that we may rise early; but first let's pay our reckoning, for I will have nothing to hinder me in the morning; for my purpose is to prevent the Sun rising.

PET. A match; come Coridon, you are to be my bed-fellow: I know, Brother, you and your Scholar will lie together; but where shall we meet to-morrow night? for my friend Coridon and I will go up the water towards Ware.

Pisc. And my Scholar and I will go down towards Waltham.

COR. Then let's meet here; for here are fresh sheets that smell of lavender, and I am sure we cannot expect better meat, or better usage in any place.

PET. 'Tis a match. Good night to every body. PISC. And so say I.

VEN. And so say I.

Pisc. Good morrow, good Hostess, I see my Brother Peter is still in bed: Come give my Scholar and me a morning-drink, and a bit of meat to breakfast, and be sure to get a good dish of meat or two against supper, for we shall come home as hungry as hawks. Come, Scholar, let's be going.

VEN. Well now, good Master, as we walk towards the river give me direction, according to your promise, how I shall fish for a Trout.

Pisc. My honest Scholar, I will take this very convenient opportunity to do it.

The Trout is usually caught with a worm or a Minnow, which some call a Penk, or with a fly, viz. either a natural or an artificial fly: concerning which three I will give you some observations and directions.

And first for worms of these there be very many sorts; some breed only in the earth, as the Earth-worm; others of or amongst plants, as the Dug-worm; and others breed either out of excrements, or in the bodies of living creatures, as in the horns of sheep or deer; or some of dead flesh, as the Maggot or Gentle, and others.

Now these be most of them particularly good for particular fishes: but for the Trout, the Dew-worm, which some also call the Lob-worm, and the Brandling, are the chief; and especially the first for a great Trout, and the latter for a less. There be also of Lob-worms some called Squirrel-tails, a worm that has a red head, a streak down the back, and a broad tail, which are noted to be the best, because they are the toughest and most lively, and live longest in the water: for you are to know, that a dead worm is but a dead bait, and like to catch nothing, compared to a lively, quick stirring worm: and for a Brandling, he is usually found in an old dunghill, or some very rotten place near to it: but most usually in cow-ung, or hog's dung, rather than horse-dung, which is somewhat too hot and

dry for that worm. But the best of them are to be found in the bark of the tanners, which they cast up in heaps after they have used it about their leather.

There are also divers others kinds of worms, which for colour and shape alter even as the ground out of which they are got, as the Marsh-worm, the Tag-tail, the Flag-worm, the Dock-worm, the Oakworm, the Gilt-tail, the Twachel or Lob-worm, which of all others is the most excellent bait for a Salmon, and too many to name, even as many sorts as some think there be of several herbs or shrubs, or of several kinds of birds in the air; of which I shall say no more, but tell you, that what worms soever you fish with, are the better for being well scoured, that is, long kept before they be used: and in case you have not been so provident, then the way to cleanse and scour them quickly, is to put them all night in water, if they be Lob-worms, and then put them into your bag with fennel; but you must not put your Brandlings above an hour in water, and then put them into fennel for sudden use; but if you have time, and purpose to keep them long, then they be best preserved in an earthen pot with good store of moss, which is to be fresh every three or four days in summer, and every week or eight days in winter; or at least the moss taken from them, and clean washed, and wrung betwixt your hands till it be dry, and then put it to them again. And when your worms, especially the Brand