CHAP. I.] THE FIRST DAY. 31 



I know the language of them, and they know the language and 

 meaning of one another, as perfectly as we know the voices of 

 those with whom we discourse daily. 



I might enlarge myself in the commendation of Hunting, and 

 of the noble Hound especially, as also of the docibleness of dogs 

 in general ; and I might make many observations of land- 

 creatures, that for composition, order, figure, and constitution, 

 approach nearest to the completeness and understanding of man ; 

 especially of those creatures, which Moses in the Law permitted 

 to the Jews, which have cloven hoofs, and chew the cud ; which 

 I shall forbear to name, because I will not be so uncivil to 

 Mr Piscator, as not to allow him a time for the commendation of 

 Angling, which he calls an art ; but doubtless it is an easy one : 

 and, Mr Auceps, I doubt we shall hear a watery discourse of it, 

 but I hope it will not be a long one. 



AUCEPS. And I hope so too, though I fear it will. 



PISCATOR. Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I 

 confess my discourse is like to prove suitable to my recreation, 

 calm and quiet ; we seldom 6 take the name of God into our 

 mouths, but it is either to praise him, or pray to him : if others 

 use it vainly in the midst of their recreations, so vainly as if they 

 meant to conjure, I must tell you, it is neither our fault nor our 

 custom ; we protest against it. But, 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 

 reputation 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 creation, the element upon 

 which the Spirit of God did first move, the element which God 

 commanded 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 lawgiver and chief philosopher, skilled in all the 

 learning of the Egyptians, who was called the friend of God, and 



VARIATION. 



we seldom make the welkin to roar: we seldom take the name, &c. \st and *d edit. 



Glossary. But query if rascal is not rather applied to animals of an inferor kind to those 

 usually hunted? In the Boke of St Albans the word is thus used: "The manere of 

 huntynge for all manere of bestys, whether they ben bestys, or venery, or chace, or 

 rascal!" After mentioning bucks, does, foxes, marterons, and wild roes : 



" Other bestys all 

 Where so ye theym fynde rascall ye shall them call." 



