CHAP. I. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 97 



I confess my discourse is like to prove suitable to my 

 recreation, calm and quiet; we seldom take thejiame 

 of God into our mouths, but it is either to praise him, 

 or to 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 or 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 di- 

 minution 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 liv- 

 ing creatures abundantly ; and without which, those 

 that inhabit the land, even all creatures that have 

 breath in their nostrils, must suddenly return to putre* 

 faction. Moses, the great lawgiver and chief philo- 

 sopher, skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians, 

 who was called the friend of God, and knew the mind 

 of the Almighty, names this element the first in the 

 creation : this is the element upon which the Spirit of 

 God did first move, and is the chief ingredient in the 

 creation : many philosophers have made it to com- 

 prehend all the other elements, and most allow it the 

 chiefest in the mixtion of all living creatures. 



There be that profess to believe that all bodies are 

 made of water, and may be reduced back again to 

 water only : they endeavour to demonstrate it thus : 



Take a willow, or any like speedy-growing plant, 

 newly rooted in a box or barrel full of earth weigh 

 them all together exactly when the trees begin to 

 grow, and then weigh them all together after the tree 

 is increased from its first rooting, to weigh an hun- 

 dred pound weight more than when it was first rooted 

 and weighed ; and you shall find this augment of the 



* A handsome reproof of Senator for the sarcasm at the end of his 

 discourse, and of Auceps for adopting it. 



