22 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART i. 



an enemy to the Otter : for you are to note, that we Anglers all 

 love one another, and therefore do I hate the Otter 6 both for my 

 own, and their sakes who are of my brotherhood. 



VENATOR. And I am a lover of Hounds ; I have followed 

 many a pack of dogs many a mile, and heard many merry 

 Huntsmen 7 make sport and scoff at Anglers. 



AUCEPS. And I profess myself a Falconer, and have heard 

 many grave, serious men pity them, it is such a heavy, contempt- 

 ible, dull recreation. 



8 PISCATOR. You know, Gentlemen, it is an easy thing to scoff 

 at any art or recreation ; a little wit mixed with ill-nature, confi- 

 dence, and malice, will do it ; but though they often venture boldly, 

 yet they are often caught, even in their own trap, according to 

 that of Lucian, the father of the family of Scoffers : 



Lucian, well skill'd in scoffing, this hath writ, 

 Friend, that's your folly, which you think your wit : 

 This you vent oft, void both of wit and fear, 

 Meaning another, when yourself you jeer.* 



9 If to this you add what Solomon f says of Scoffers, that they 



VARIATIONS. 



which we contemn and pity ; men of sour complexions ; money-getting men, that spend 

 all their time, first in getting, and next in anxious care to keep it : men that are con- 

 demned to be rich, and always discontented, or busy. For these poor rich men, we 

 Anglers pity them ; and stand in no need to borrow their thoughts to think ourselves 

 happy : for, trust me, Sir, we enjoy a contentedness above the reach of such disposi- 

 tions. 



6 the Otter perfectly, even for their sakes. ist edit, the Otter, even. zd edit. 



7 many men. zd, j,d, and $th edit. 



8 But if this satisfy not, I pray bid the Scoffer put this epigram into his pocket, and 

 read it every morning for his breakfast, for I wish him no better ; he shall find it fixed 

 before the Dialogues of Lucian, who may be justly accounted the father of the family of 

 all Scoffers: and though I owe none of that fraternity so much as good will, yet I have 

 taken a little pleasant pains to make such a conversion of it as may make it the fitter 

 for all of that fraternity. 



Lucian, well skill'd in scoffing, this hath writ, etc: 



9 But no more of the Scoffer ; for since Solomon says, he is an abomination to men, 

 he shall be so to me ; and, I think, to all that love Virtue and Angling. 



* As might be inferred from the conclusion of the paragraph which precedes these 

 verses in the first edition, they were slightly altered by Walton from the original, which 

 occurs in "Certain Select Dialogues of Lucian, together with his true History, trans- 

 lated from the Greek into English, by Mr Francis Hickes." Oxford, 1634, 410. That 

 work was published by the son of the author, Thomas Hickes, M.A.; and at the end of 

 an address "to the honest and judicious reader" is the epigram in question, in Greek 

 and English, and signed "T. H." 



" Lucian, well skill'd in old toyes, this hath writ ; 

 For all's but folly that men thinke is wit J - 

 No settled judgement doth in men appear ; 

 But thou admirest that which others jeer." 

 That Walton has much improved on the original is obvious. T. 



t Proverbs xxiv. 9, "The thought of foolishness is sin ; and the scorner is an abom- 

 ination to men." 



