Antiquity of Angling 195 



" The sun was setting and vespers done, the monks came one 

 by one, 



And down they went through the garden trim in cassock and 

 cowl to the river's brim. 



Every brother his rod he took, every rod had a line and hook, 



Every hook had a bait so fine, and thus they sang in the even 

 shine, 



* Oh ! to-morrow will be Friday, so we fish the stream to-day ! 



Oh ! to-morrow will be Friday, so we fish the stream to- 

 day ! ' — Benedicite." 



The old dame, among her other unctuous sur- 

 roundings as Prioress of Sopwell, had the pike 

 and the carp, and, doubtless, the perch and tench, 

 in the ponds of the Priory, with the red-spotted 

 brown trout coursing a brook not distant. To 

 fish on Thursday for Friday's meals was not 

 only a delight but a necessity for these hooded 

 disciples of the craft, and the refrain of the old 

 canticle and the jollity of the air of it, accentu- 

 ated, as it doubtless was by the lifting of a fat 

 carp from the adjacent moat, or, perhaps, a lusty 

 trout from the near-by stream, stirred their blood 

 even as ours leaps to-day when the monarch of 

 the brook is braving skill and tackle. 



Nearly two hundred years after the publica- 

 tion of " The Booke of St. Albans," Walton wrote 

 his angling idyl, " The Compleat Angler," and 



