CHAP, v.] THE FOURTH DA Y. 99 



having caught three brace of Trouts, I will tell you a short tale 

 as we walk towards our breakfast. A scholar, a preacher I 

 should say, that was to preach to procure the approbation of a 

 parish that he might be their lecturer, had got from his fellow- 

 pupil the copy of a sermon that was first preached with great com- 

 mendation by him that composed it ; and though the borrower of 

 it preached it, word for word, as it was at first, yet it was utterly 

 disliked as it was preached by the second to his congregation, 

 which the sermon-borrower complained of to the lender of it : 

 and was thus answered : " I lent you indeed, my fiddle, but not 

 my fiddle-stick ; for you are to know that every one cannot make 

 music with my words, which are fitted for my own mouth." 

 And so, my scholar, you are to know, that as the ill-pronunciation 

 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 

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



VENATOR. All excellent good ; and my stomach excellent 

 good too. And I now 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 



* Leonard Lessius, a very learned Jesuit, professor of divinity in the College of 

 Jesuits at Louvain : he was born at Antwerp, 1554 ; and became very famous for his 

 skill in divinity, civil law, mathematics, physic, and history : he wrote several theo- 

 logical tracts, and a book entitled Hygiasticon^ sen vera ratio valetudinis bona 6r* 

 I'itce ad extremam seiiectutem conserramiff. From this tract of Lessius it is probable 

 the passage in the text is cited. He died 1623. H. 



