JOHNSON, GUILTLESS " WORM-FOOL " LIBEL i 



/J 



published in 1676 — of The Compleat Angler, of which his 

 criticism, " a mighty pretty book," hardly indicates contempt 

 for its subject, or author, whose life he once meant writing. 



On Voltaire also the Worm-Fool libel has also been 

 saddled, but wrongly. To another Frenchman, Martial Guyet, 

 it has been attributed, but not convincingly. 



In Notes and Queries, 3rd series, X. 472, can be found the 

 lines : 



" Messieurs, jc suis pecheur, et pecheur de la ligne, 

 J 'en fait ici I'aveu. Ce cas semble pen digne 

 De vos graves esprits : car on I'a dit souvent 

 La ligne, avec sa canne, c'est un long instrument 

 Dont le plus mince bout tient un petit reptile, 

 Et dont I'autre est tenu par un grand imbecile ! " 



" These lines were written by Guyet, who if he were Martial 

 Guyet died nearly one hundred years before the great lexico- 

 grapher was born." 1 Even before Guyet the libel seems to 

 have become hackneyed, " car on I'a dit souvent." 



Plutarch's works figure so frequently in these pages that I 

 will not here specially dwell on or quote from them, except 

 " once more the tale to tell " of Antony and Cleopatra's fishing 

 as given in his Life of Antony, 29, 2. 



Antony (who " fishes, drinks, and wastes the lamps of 

 night in revel "), when with Cleopatra on the Nile had, of course, 

 if Beaumont and Fletcher's lines hold, not been half as success- 

 ful as his mistress : 



" She was used to take delight, with her fair hand 

 To angle in the Nile, where the glad fish. 

 As if they knew who 'twas sought to deceive them. 

 Contended to be taken." - 



To shine in her eyes, he secretly commanded his diver to 

 attach fish to his hook. Cleopatra, becoming aware of the trick, 

 signalled her diver to go down (or as some others relate, bribed 

 Antony's own servants) to affix to his hook, a salted fish 

 (rtip/xoc). This he promptly struck and hauled out mid 



* As to the various Guyets, see 6th series. III. 87, 5th series, V. 352, and 

 Lawrence B. PhiHp's Diet, of Biog. Reference, which gives " Martial Guyet, 

 French poet and translator, 17th century." 



* The False One, Act T., Scene 2. 



