CHAP, v.] THE FOURTH DAY. 115 



to make against night ; for our countryman, honest Coridon, will 

 expect your catch, and my song, which I must be forced to patch 

 up, for it is so long since I learnt it, that I have forgot a part of 

 it. But, come, now it hath done raining, let's stretch our legs a 

 little in a gentle walk to the river, and try what interest our angles 

 will pay us for lending them so long to be used by the Trouts ; 

 lent them indeed, like usurers, for our profit and their destruc- 

 tion. 



VENATOR. Oh me ! look you, master, a fish ! a fish ! Oh, 

 alas, master, I have lost her. 



PlSCATOR. Ay marry, Sir, that was a good fish indeed: if I 

 had had the luck to have taken up that rod, then 'tis twenty to 

 one he should not have broke my line by running to the rod's end, 

 as you suffered him. I would have held him within the bent of 

 my rod, unless he had been fellow to the great Trout that is near 

 an ell long, which was of such a length and depth that he had 

 his picture drawn, and now is to be seen at mine host Rickabie's, 

 at the George in Ware, 5 and it may be, by giving that very great 

 Trout * the rod, that is, by casting it to him into the water, I 

 might have caught him at the long-run, for so I use always to do 

 when I meet with an over-grown fish ; and you will learn to do so 

 too, hereafter, for I tell you, scholar, fishing is an art, or, at least, 

 it is an art to catch fish. 



VENATOR. But, master, I have heard that the great Trout 

 you speak of is a Salmon. 



VARIATION. 



5 I would have held him, unless he had been fellow to the great Trout that is near an 

 ell long, which had his picture drawn, and now is to be seen, &c. ist edit. 



* In the reign of Charles the Second a Trout was taken in the river Kennet near 

 Newbury, with a casting net, which measured forty-five inches in length. Gainsford, 

 in " The Glory of England," 410, Lond. 1619, p. 147, mentions one taken near Tyrone, 

 forty-six inches long, " the portraiture of which worthy Sir Josias Bodley hath depicted 

 in piano." The largest Trout known to have been caught with a minnow, in the South 

 of England, was taken in 1755, by Mr Howell of Cateaton Street, at Hambledon Lock 

 (between Maidenhead and Henley), the weight of which was sixteen pounds. In 1794, 

 Mr Daniel, the author of " Rural Sports," killed a Trout near Richmond Bridge, that 

 weighed ten pounds and a half ; and in the following year, a Mr Jons speared, at Cook's 

 Ferry in the river Lea, a Trout weighing fifteen pounds. An instance of the longev-Ity 

 of the Trout is cited in the Sporting Magazine for September 1826 : " Fifty-three years 

 ago Mr William Mossop of Board Hall, near Broughton in Furness, placed a small trout 

 in a well in the orchard belonging to his family, where it has ever since remained until 

 last week, when it died for want of water, the severe drought having dried up the 



spring by which the well was supplied. This fish would receive from Mr M 's hands 



snails, worms, and bread, and always seemed pleased at the presence of its feeder, fre- 

 quently moving its tail and fins with the greatest rapidity, and approaching the surface 

 of the water. Trout were several times put into the well, which were as constantly 

 devoured by the solitary inmate, who had increased in size, and weighed at his death 

 about two pounds." 



