CHAP. V. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 197 



anchor fall, by a very long cable or rope, on a rock, or 

 the sand, within the sea. And this being so well ob- 

 served and demonstrated, as it is by that learned man, 

 has made me to believe that Eels unbed themselves, and 

 stir, at the noise of thunder, and not, only, as some 

 think, by the motion or stirring of the earth which is 

 occasioned by that thunder. 



And this reason of Sir Francis Bacon, Exper. 792. has 

 made me crave pardon of one that I laughed at for af- 

 firming, that he knew Carps come to a certain place in 

 a pond, to be fed at the ringing of a bell or the beating 

 of a drum. And however, it shall be a rule for me, 

 to make as little noise as I can, when I am fishing, until 

 Sir Francis Bacon be confuted > which I shall give any 

 man leave to do*. 



And leSt you may think him singular in this opinion, 

 I will tell you, this seems to be believed by our 

 learned Doctor Hake will, who in his Apology of God's 

 power and providence t, f. 360, quotes Pliny, to report 

 that one of the emperors had particular fish-ponds ; 

 and, in them, several fish that appeared and came, when 

 they were called by their particular names J. And St. 

 James tells us, chap. 3. 7. that all things in the sea 

 have been tamed by mankind. And Pliny tells us, 

 Lib. ix. 35. that Antonia, the wife of Drusus, had a 



* That fish hear, I<? confirmed by the authority of late writers : Swam- 

 merdam asserts it, and adds, that " they have a wonderful labyrinth of th 

 * ear for that purpose." See Swammcrdam Of Insects* edit. .London, 

 1758, p. 50. A clergyman, a friend of mine, assures me, that at the abbey 

 of St. Bernard, near Antwerp, he saw Carp come at the whistling of the 

 feeder. 



f This book, which was published in folio, 1635, and is full of excellent 

 learning and good sense, contains an examination and censure of that com- 

 mon error which philosophers have fallen into, " That there is in nature 

 * a perpetual and universal decay ;" the contrary whereof, after an ex- 

 tensive view of the history of the physical and moral world, and a judi- 

 cious and impartial Comparison of former ages with that wherein the au- 

 thor lived, is with great force of argument, demonstrated. The reader 

 may, in this book, meet with a relation of that instance of Lord Crom- 

 well's gratitude to Sig. Frescobaldi, a Florentine merchant, which is given, 

 in a dramatic form, in the History of Thomas Lord Cromivell, published a* 

 Shakespeare's by some of the earlier editors of his works, 



\ Mons. Bernier, in his History of Indostan, reports the like of the 

 Great Mogul. . 



