68 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



a day's keeping after he is dead, that I can compare 

 him to nothing so fitly as to cherries newly gathered 

 from a tree, and others that have been bruised and lain 

 a day or two in water. But the chub being thus used, 

 and dressed presently, and not washed after he is gutted 

 (for note, that lying long in water, and washing the 

 blood out of any fish after they be gutted, abates much 

 of their sweetness), you will find the chub (being dressed 

 in the blood, and quickly) to be such meat as will recom- 

 pense your labour, and disabuse your opinion. 



Or, you may dress the chavender or chub thus : 



When you have scaled him, and cut off his tail and 

 fins, and washed him very clean, then chine or slit him 

 through the middle, as a salt fish is usually cut ; then 

 give him three or four cuts or scotches on the back with 

 your knife, and broil him on charcoal, or wood-coal that 

 is free from smoke, and all the time he is a-broiling baste 

 him with the best sweet butter, and good store of salt 

 mixed with it ; and to this add a little thyme cut exceed- 

 ing small, or bruised into the butter. The cheven thus 

 dressed hath the watery taste taken away, for which 

 so many except against him. Thus was the cheven 

 dressed that you now liked so well, and commended so 

 much. But note again, that if this chub that you ate 

 of, had been kept till to-morrow, he had not been worth 

 a rush. And remember that his throat be washed very 

 clean, I say very clean, and his body not washed after 

 he is gutted, as indeed no fish should be. 



Well, scholar, you see what pains I have taken to 

 recover the lost credit of the poor despised chub. And 

 now I will give you some rules how to catch him ; and 

 I am glad to enter you into the art of fishing by catching 

 a chub, for there is no fish better to enter a young angler, 

 he is so easily caught, but then it must be this particular 

 way. 



Go to the same hole in which I caught my chub, where 



