chap, i.] THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 17 



pray remember, I accuse nobody ; for as I would 

 not make " a watery discourse," so I would not put 

 too much vinegar into it ; nor would I raise the repu- 

 tation of my own art by the diminution or ruin of 

 another's. And so much for the prologue to what 

 I mean to say. 



And now for the Water, the element that I trade 

 in. The Water is the Eldest Daughter of the Crea- 

 tion, the Element upon which the Spirit of God did 

 first move, Gen. i. 2. the element which God com- 

 manded to bring forth living creatures abundantly ; 

 and without which, those that inhabit the land, even 

 all creatures that have breath in their nostrils, must 

 suddenly return to putrefaction. Moses, the great 

 law-giver and chief philosopher, skilled in all the 

 learning of the Egyptians, who was called the friend 

 of God, and knew the mind of the Almighty, names 

 this element the first in the creation ; this is the 

 element upon which the Spirit of God did first 

 move, and is the chief ingredient in the creation : 

 many Philosophers have made it to comprehend all 

 the other elements, and most allow it the chiefest 

 in the mixtion of all living creatures. 



There be that profess to believe that all bodies are 

 made of water, and may be reduced back again to 

 water only ; they endeavour to demonstrate it thus : 



Take a willow, or any like speedy-growing plant, 

 newly rooted in a box or barrel full of earth, weigh 

 them all together exactly when the trees begin to 

 grow, and then weigh all together after the tree is 



