My next and last example shall be that under-valuer 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 he would say, "it was 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 practiced 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 possess'd
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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