But could youth last, and love still breed, MOTHER. Well, I have done my song; but stay, honest anglers, for I will make Maudlin to sing you one short song more. Maudlin, sing that song that you sung last night, when young Coridon the shepherd played so purely on his oaten pipe to you and your cousin Betty. MAUD. I will, mother. I married a wife of late, The more's my unhappy fate : I married her for love, As my fancy did me move, But oh! the green sickness PISC. Well sung, good woman; I thank you; I'll give you another dish of fish one of these days, and then beg another song of you. Come, Scholar, let Maudlin alone; do not you offer to spoil her voice. Look, yonder comes mine hostess, to call us to supper. How now! is my brother Peter come? Host. Yes, and a friend with him; they are both glad to hear that you are in these parts, and long to see you, and long to be at supper, for they be very hungry. * This song and the passage before it was added to the fifth edition; until then Piscator's commendation, following it here, followed the mother's song. Sir Harris Nicholas objects to the introduction of this song "as the only objectionable allusion in the book;" but it was not so objectionable in those times as many other writings show, and seems a homely boast of the good health which recommended the pastoral beauties, as likely to be useful as well as pleasing wives. Had the milk-maid sung "Dulcina," it would have been much "higher-kilted," as the Scotch say.-Am. Ed. CHAPTER V. More Directions how to fish for, and how to make for the Trout an artificial Minnow and Flies-with some Merriment. PISC. Well met, brother Peter: I heard you and a friend would lodge here to-night, and that hath made me to bring my friend to lodge here too. My friend is one that would fain be a brother of the angle; he hath been an angler but this day, and I have taught him how to catch a chub by dapping with a grasshopper,* and the chub he caught was a lusty one of nineteen inches long. But pray, brother Peter, who is your companion ? PETER. Brother Piscator, my friend is an honest countryman, and his name is Coridon, and he is a downright witty companion, that met me here purposely to be pleasant and eat a trout, and I have not yet wetted my line since we met together; but I hope to fit him with a trout for his breakfast, for I'll be early up. Pisc. Nay, brother, you shall not stay so long: for, look you, here is a Trout • Dapping for trout with the grasshopper, the grass-beetle, the cricket, &c., over a running stream, affords very fine sport, and is the nearest imitation, as it was the original, of fly fishing. Many an "attic minstrel" have I, when a boy, made to seduce the shy, speckled, shining beauties from their haunts; but no artificial imitation have I ever succeeded with. Though the very counterfeit of life, the trout will not take them. Am. Ed. will fill six reasonable bellies. Come, Hostess, dress it presently, and get us what other meat the house will afford, and give us some of your best barley-wine, the good liquor that our honest forefathers did use to drink of; the drink which preserved their health, and made them live so long, and to do so many great deeds. PETER. O'my word this trout is perfect in season. Come, I thank you; and here is a hearty draught to you, and to all the brothers of the angle wheresoever they be, and to my young brother's good fortune to-morrow; I will furnish him with a rod, if you will furnish him with the rest of the tackling: we will set him up and make him a fisher. And I will tell him one thing for his encouragement, that his fortune hath made him happy to be scholar to such a master; a master that knows as much both of the nature and breeding of fish as any man; and can also tell him as well how to catch and cook them, from the minnow to the salmon, as any that I ever met withal. PISC. Trust me, brother Peter, I find my scholar to be so suitable to my own humor, which is to be free, and pleasant, and civilly merry, that my resolution is to hide nothing that I know from him. Believe me, Scholar, this is my resolution; and so here's to you a hearty draught, and to all that love us, and the honest art of angling. VEN. Trust me, good Master, you shall not sow your seed in barren ground, for I hope to return you an increase answerable to your hopes; but however you shall find me obedient, and thankful, and serviceable to my best ability. Pisc. 'Tis enough, honest Scholar, come, let's to supper. Come, my friend Coridon, the trout looks lovely, it was twentytwo inches when it was taken, and the belly of it looked some part of it as yellow as a marigold, and part of it white as a lily; and yet, methinks, it looks better in this good sauce. CORIDON. Indeed, honest friend, it looks well, and tastes well; I thank you for it, and so doth my friend Peter, or else he is to blame. PET. Yes, and so I do, we all thank you; and when we have supped, I will get my friend Coridon to sing you a song for requital. COR. I will sing a song, if anybody will sing another; else, to be plain with you, I will sing none: I am none of those that sing for meat, but for company: I say, “Tis merry in hall, when men sing all."* Pisc. I'll promise you I'll sing a song that was lately made at my request, by Mr. William Basse,† one that hath made the choice songs of the Hunter in his Career, and of Tom of Bedlam, and many others of note; and this that I will sing is in praise of angling. Hawkins says, i. e., "when all are eating." Why not laughing ?-Am. Ed. † William Basse. Sir Harris Nicholas, in his Life of Walton (cxx.), calls Basse "an eminent composer," and in his note on the "Angler's Song," says, "These initials (W. B.) occur in the first edition only, and prove that Walton, in saying that this song 'was lately made at my request, by that composer did not refer to the music only." It appears to me that Walton did not refer to the music but the song itself, and this is the more certain from the fact, that we have no trace of Basse as a musical composer. Sir John Hawkins, in his History of Music, makes no mention of him in that character, as from his familiarity with Walton he would have done, had he known him to be a composer. Basse was a poetical writer, for, besides the songs, "The Hunter in his Career" (first reprinted in Pickering's edition by Sir Harris, from a collection of ballads, 1625), and "Tom of Bedlam" (which the reader will find in Percy's Reliques, Series ii., B. 3, 17, but with a mistake in the third verse of "Pentrarchye" for "Pentateuch"), Sir Harris tells us, that in Warton's Life of Dean Bathurst there are verses "To Mr. W. Basse on the intended publication of his poems, Jan. 13, 1651." Hawkins also says that the "Tom of Bedlam," beginning "From my sad and darksome cell," with the music set to it by Hen. Lawes, is printed in a book entitled "Playford's Antidote against Melancholy," 8vo., 1669, and afterwards in another collection, 1670. Yet Walton says Basse "made" that song as well as this. Besides, the other angler's song (in chap. xvi.), "Man's Life is but Vain,” was published in the first edition of the Angler as set to music, “by Mr. H. Lawes," probably at the request of Walton; as this probably was. it would be strange if other music had been so soon substituted by Lawes in the place of the author's own. Indeed Of Lawes himself, more will be said in another note, and the music placed in the Appendix.-Am. Ed. COR. And then mine shall be the praise of a countryman's life: what will the rest sing of? PET. I will promise you I will sing another song in praise of angling to-morrow night; for we will not part till then, but fish to-morrow, and sup together, and the next day every man leave fishing, and fall to his business. VEN. 'Tis a match; and I will provide you a song or a catch against then too, which shall give some addition of mirth to the company; for we will be civil and as merry as beggars. Pisc. 'Tis a match, my masters; let's e'en say grace, and turn to the fire, drink the other cup to wet our whistles, and so sing away all sad thoughts. Come on, my masters, who begins? I think it is best to draw cuts, and avoid contention. PET. It is a match. Look, the shortest cut falls to Coridon. COR. Well, then, I will begin, for I hate contention. CORIDON'S SONG. Oh the sweet contentment And wend along with me. For courts are full of flattery, Heigh trolie lollie loe, &c. But oh! the honest countryman |