THE COMPLETE ANGLER 231 



sometimes flows : and note, that carps do more usually 

 breed in marie-pits, or pits that have clean clay-bottoms, 

 or in new ponds, or ponds that lie dry a winter season, 

 than in old ponds that be full of mud and weeds. 



Well, scholar, I have told you the substance of all 

 that either observation, or discourse, or a diligent survey 

 of Dubravius and Lebault hath told me : not that 

 they in their long discourses have not said more ; but 

 the most of the rest are so common observations, as if 

 a man should tell a good arithmetician, that twice two 

 is four. I will therefore put an end to this discourse, 

 and we will here sit down and rest us.* 



* It is observable that the author has said very little of pond- 

 fishing, which is in truth a dull recreation ; and to which I have 

 heard it objected, that fish in ponds are already caught. Neverthe- 

 less I find, that in the canal at St. James's Park, which, though a 

 large one, is yet a pond, it was, in the reign of Charles II., the 

 practice of ladies to angle. 



" Beneath, a shoal of silver fishes glides, 

 And plays about the gilded barges' sides ; 

 The ladies, angling in the crystal lake, 

 Feast on the waters with the prey they take : 

 At once victorious with their lines and eyes, 

 They make the fishes and the men their prize." 



Waller, " Poem on St. James's Park," lately improved by His 

 Majesty. H. 



