NORTHERN MEMOIRS. 331 



educated and disciplined in the rudiments of 

 angling, he undertakes a task he can hardly per- 

 form, either to describe his nature or his haunt. 

 I know there are some rodomontadoes of the 

 rod, that wilfully and extravagantly will arraign 

 their faith, and rest it upon the mouldy records 

 and frothy opinion of slippery authority, where- 

 by to confirm themselves in the vanity of tradi- 

 tion, as also to gratify the zeal of putationers. 

 For that end I must tell you, and you may tell 

 others, that the silver streams of triumphant 

 Trent, as frequently as any streams, stroke the 

 scaly fins of this famous fish, who loves to live 

 by them, but cares not to live in them, rather 

 absconding himself in eddies, and sometimes in 

 arches, not far from streams and torrents of wa- 

 ter, where he is frequently found by the indus- 

 trious angler : for to search him striving against 

 a stream, is like to Q. Elizabeth's Scogen, that 

 at the sun's meridian (with a candle and Ian- 

 thorn) sought up and down for an honest man : 

 So to rifle the streams in Trent, or any other ri- 

 ver for this incognito, is but labour in vain, to 

 seek for him that hides himself from the rest of 

 his associates in solitary recesses ; a lively imita- 

 tion of Diogenes in Dolio. 



The burbolt therefore we are to consider him 

 a fish, that as rarely as any fish travels far from 

 home to fetch his food ; from whence we con- 



