CHAP. XII. THE COMPLETE ANGLEtt. 55 



And now I think best to rest myself; for I have almost 

 spent my spirts with talking so long. 



Fen. Nay, good master ! one fish more ; for you 

 see it rains still; and you know our angles are like 

 money put to usury, they may thrive, though we sit 

 still, and do nothing but talk and enjoy one another. 

 Com*" 5 come, the other fish, good master! 



Pise. But, scholar ! have you nothing to mix with 

 this discourse, which now grows both tedious and tire- 

 some ? shall 1 h/tve nothing from you, that seem to have 

 both a good memory, and a chearful spirit ? 



Ven. Yes, master: I will speak you a copy of 

 verses that were and; by Doctor Donne, and made to 

 shew iii- world that he could make soft and smooth 

 verses, when lie thought smoothness worth his labour: 

 And I love tiiem the better, because they allude to 

 rivers, and fish and fishing. They be these : 



Come live with me, and be my love : 

 And we will some uew pleasures prove 

 Of goldeu sands, and crystal brooks; 

 With silken lines, and silver hooks. 



There will the river, whisp'ring, run, 

 Warm'd by thy eyes more than the sun; 

 And, there, the enamel'd fish will stay, 

 Begging, " Themselves they may betray." 



June, yet you may continue to fish for him till the end of September; he 

 is best taken in cloudy windy weather, and, as some say, from seven to ten- 

 in the forenoon, and from two to seven in the afternoon. 



Other baits for the Pearch are: loaches; miller' s-thumbs ; stickle- 

 backs; small lob, and marsh, and red- worms, well scoured ; horse-beans 

 boiled ; cad-bait ; oak- worms ; bobs and gentles. 



Many, of these fish, are taken in the rivers about Oxford ; and the au- 

 thor of the Angler's sure Guide says, he once saw the figure of a Pearch, 

 drawn with a pencil on the door of a house near that city, which was 

 twenty-nine inches long ; and was informed it was the true dimension of 

 a living Pearch. Angl. sure Guide, 155. 



The largest Pearch are taken : with a minnow, hooked with a good 

 hold through the back-fin, or rather through the upper lip; for the Pearch, 

 by reason of the figure of his mouth, cannot take the bait cross-wise, as 

 the Pike will. When you fish, thus, use a large cork-float, and lead your 

 line about nine inches from the bottom, otherwise the minnow will come 

 to the top of the water : But in t : e ordinary way of fishing, let your bait 

 hang within about six inches from the ground* 



P 4 



