LOVE AND PATIENCE. 167 



When you have the misfortune to lose a fish 

 while playing it, a circumstance which you must 

 not expect to be of very unfrequent occurrence, 

 be careful to keep what is infinitely more valu- 

 able your patience and good temper; those, 

 observes Stoddart, " are worth a cart-load of 

 salmon." After a large fish has escaped you in 

 this way, it may be as well to remove to another 

 stickle, repeating your visit to the former place 



if you think it worthy of so high an honour 

 after the lapse of a short time.* You know that 

 it was said centuries ago, by the old Roman poet 



in a work written on a much more tender 

 subject than angling that 



" The fish once prick' d avoids the barbed hook, 

 And spoils the sport of all the neighb'ring brook." f 



But it is by no means improbable that you may 

 hook the same fish a second time, for such an 

 instance is of constant occurrence. Sir Hum- 

 phrey Davy says "I have caught pikes with 



* " If you have a rise, but fail to hook your game, either 

 by striking prematurely, or from the fish having missed his 

 spring, you may throw over him again almost directly, if he 

 be a small one ; but, if he be * the monarch of the brook,' 

 don't venture near the spot again for half an hour at least." 

 Hansard 's Trout and Salmon Fishing in Wales. 



f Ovid's Art of Love. 



M 4 



