taken from him. What could such an one do on dry land? A farmer put aboard ship and set to navigate it could not be more helpless than the dweller in those old marshes, dependent only upon his marsh lore, when the water was drained off and the fishes gone, reed-beds cut down, the land cultivated, and the wild-fowl dispersed. The fears of this people were quaintly expressed in the popular verses then current, entitled "The Powte's Complaint." "Powte," it should be said, was the Fen name for the lamprey-- "Come, brethren of the water, and let us all assemble To treat upon this matter, which makes us quake and tremble; For we shall rue, if it be true the fens be undertaken, And where we feed in fen and reed they'll feed both beef an bacon. They'll sow both beans and oats where never man yet thought it; Where men did row in boats ere undertakers bought it; But, Ceres, thou behold us now, let wild oats be their venture, And let the frogs and miry bogs destroy where they do enter. Behold the great design, which they do now determine, Will make our bodies pine, a prey to crows and vermine; For they do mean all fens to drain and waters overmaster, All will be dry, and we must die, 'cause Essex Calves want pasture. Away with boats and rudders, farewell both boots and skatches, No need of one nor t'other; men now make better matches; Stilt-makers all and tanners shall complain of this disaster, For they will make each muddy lake for Essex Calves a pasture. The feather'd fowls have wings, to fly to other nations, But we have no such things to help our transportations; We must give place, O grievous case! to horned beasts and cattle, Except that we can all agree to drive them out by battle."