"And now, scholar, my direction for fly-fishing is ended with this shower, for it has done raining: and now look about you and see how pleasantly that meadow looks; nay, and the earth smells as sweetly too. Come, let me tell you what holy Mr. Herbert says of such days and flowers as these; and then we will thank God that we enjoy them, and walk to the river and sit down quietly and try to catch the other brace of trouts : Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night For thou must die. Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, Thy root is ever in the grave~ And thou must die. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, My music shows you have your closes And all must die. Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like seasoned timber never gives; But when the whole world turns to coal Then chiefly lives. Besides "The Complete Angler," Izaak Walton has left us a volume containing four or five lives of eminent men quite as fine as that great Pastoral, although in a very different way. His life of Dr. Donne, the satirist and theologian, contains an account of a vision (the apparition of a beloved wife in England passing before the waking eyes of her husband in Paris) which both for the clearness of the narration and the undoubted authenticity of the event, is amongst the most interesting that is to be found in the long catalogue of supernatural visi tations. END OF VOL I. LONDON: Printed by Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street. |