90 The Complete Angler 



scholar, you are to know, that as the ill pronuncia- 

 tion or ill accenting of words in a sermon spoils it, 

 so the ill carriage of your line, or not fishing even 

 to a foot in a right place, makes you lose your 

 labour : and you are to know, that though you have 

 my fiddle, that is, my very rod and tacklings with 

 which you see I catch fish, yet you have not my 

 fiddle-stick, that is, you yet have not skill to know 

 how to carry your hand and line, nor how to guide 

 it to a right place : and this must be taught you ; 

 for you are to remember, I told you Angling is an 

 art, either by practice or a long observation, or 

 both. But take this for a rule, When you fish for 

 a Trout with a worm, let your line have so much, 

 and not more lead than will fit the stream in which 

 you fish ; that is to say, more in a great troublesome 

 stream than in a smaller that is quieter ; as near as 

 may be, so much as will sink the bait to the bottom, 

 and keep it still in motion, and not more. 



But now, let's say grace, and fall to breakfast. 

 What say you, scholar, to the providence of an old 

 angler? Does not this meat taste well? and was 

 not this place well chosen to eat it ? for this syca- 

 more-tree will shade us from the sun's heat. 



VENATOR. All excellent good ; and my stomach 

 excellent good, too. And now I remember, and 

 find that true which devout Lessius says, "that 

 poor men, and those that fast often, have much 

 more pleasure in eating than rich men, and gluttons, 

 that always feed before their stomachs are empty 

 of their last meat and call for more ; for by that 

 means they rob themselves of that pleasure that 

 hunger brings to poor men ". And I do seriously 

 approve of that saying of yours, "that you had 

 rather be a civil, well-governed, well-grounded, 

 temperate, poor angler, than a drunken lord " : but 

 I hope there is none such. However, I am certain 



