chap, xxr]        THE COMPLEAT ANGLER	179
Would the world now adopt me for her heir,
Would Beauty's Queen entitle me the fair,—
Fame spea\ me Fortune's minion,—could I vie
Angels with India,—with a speaking eye
Command bare heads, bow'd \nees, stride Justice dumb,
As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue
To stones by epitaphs: be called great master
In the loose rhymes of every poetaster:—
Could I be more than any man that lives,
Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives:
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign,
Than ever Fortune would have made them mine;
And hold one minute of this holy leisure,
Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.
Welcome, pure thoughts, Welcome ye silent groves,
These guests, these courts my soul most dearly loves:
Now the wing'd people of the sty shall sing -
My cheerful anthems to the gladsome Spring:
A Pray*r~bool( now, shall be my looking-glass^r,
In which I will adore sweet Virtue's face.
Here dwell no hateful loo^s, no palace-cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced fears:
Then here Til sit, and sigh my hot love's folly,
And learn / affect an holy melancholy:
And if Contentment be a stranger,—then
I'll ne'er loo\ for it, but in Heaven again.
ven, Well, Master, these verses be worthy to keep a room in
every man's memory. I thank you for them; and I thank you for
your many instructions, which God willing, I will not forget: and
as St. Austin in his Confessions, Book 4, Chap, 3, commemorates
the kindness of his friend Verecundus, for lending him and his
companion a country-house, because there they rested and enjoyed
themselves free from the troubles of the world; so, having had the
like advantage, both by your conversation and the Art you have
taught me, I ought ever to do the like: for indeed, your company