know thee he did, having argued with thee in Stafford--and not love
Isaak Walton? A pedant angler, I call him, a plaguy angler, so let
him huff away, and turn we to thee and to thy sweet charm in fishing
for men.

How often, studying in thy book, have I hummed to myself that of
Horace -


Laudis amore tumes? Sunt certa piacula quae te
Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello.


So healing a book for the frenzy of fame is thy discourse on
meadows, and pure streams, and the country life. How peaceful, men
say, and blessed must have been the life of this old man, how lapped
in content, and hedged about by his own humility from the world!
They forget, who speak thus, that thy years, which were many, were
also evil, or would have seemed evil to divers that had tasted of
thy fortunes. Thou wert poor, but that, to thee, was no sorrow, for
greed of money was thy detestation. Thou wert of lowly rank, in an
age when gentle blood was alone held in regard; yet thy virtues made
thee hosts of friends, and chiefly among religious men, bishops, and
doctors of the Church. Thy private life was not unacquainted with
sorrow; thy first wife and all her fair children were taken from
thee like flowers in spring, though, in thine age, new love and new
offspring comforted thee like "the primrose of the later year." Thy
private griefs might have made thee bitter, or melancholy, so might
the sorrows of the State and of the Church, which were deprived of
their heads by cruel men, despoiled of their wealth, the pious