CARP, DA CE AND MINNO W. 42 1 



one of those leather-mouthed fish that has his teeth in his throat, and will 

 hardly be lost off from the hook if he be once strucken." 



We have no tnie Gudgeons in America, but the name is familiar to 

 every American. It is a curious illustration of the persistence and vitality 

 •of popular sayings — that any man of English descent, be he of the East, 

 West or South, if in fishing his hook brings up a worthless object, a stick, 

 a tin-can or a rusty crinoline, will remark that he has " caught a gudgeon.' ' 

 And this is simply a manner of speech handed down to him tlirough 

 several generations, from his English forefathers. The dramas current in 

 England at the time when America was first colonized were full of allusions 

 to Gudgeon catching, which seem to have been a part of the slang lan- 

 guage of the day, and in which the man who fished for Gudgeon seems to 

 have been considered as contemptible as the Gudgeon itself. 



In 1533, three hundred and fifty years ago, Holinshed in his " Chronicle 

 of Ireland " asked : " Do you think that James was so mad as to gape for 

 .^ogions?" and Butler in " Hudibras " said : 



" Make fools believe in their foreseeing 

 Of things before they are in being 

 To swallow gudgeons 'ere they're catched 

 - And count their chickens 'ere they're hatched." 



Webster in his drama, " The Devil's Law-Case," in 1623, made Romelio 

 to say : 



" I would wish my noble venturer take heed, 

 It may be that while he hopes to catch a gilt-head 

 He may draw up a gudgeon." \Act\,Sc. i.J 



Barry in his " Ram-Alley ; or. Merry Tricks," in 161 1, made use of this 

 dialogue : 



^idriaiia: " I took you for a novice, and I must think 

 You know not the inwards of a woman. 

 Do you not know that women are like fish, 

 Which must be struck when they are brave to bite, 

 Or all your labor's lost." 

 Small-Shanks : Has the gudgeon bit ? 



Frances : He has been nibbling. [Act 2, Sc. i.] 



Ben Jonson and Richard Duke also alluded to the gudgeon, and we all 

 aie familiar Avith the advice of Gratiano in " The Merchant of Venice :" 



" But fish not with his melancholly baite, 

 For this foo! gudgeon, this opinion. \_Act i, Sc. i.] 



