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Side 21 av 113
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 eves possess
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.
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