CHAP. XIII. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 257 



our learned Camden ; and laborious Gerhard *, in his 

 Herbal. 



It is said by Rondeletius, that those Eels that are bred 

 in rivers that relate to, or be nearer to the sea, never re- 

 turn to the fresh waters, as the Salmon does always 

 desire to do, when they have once tasted the salt water, 

 and I do the more easily believe this, because I am cer- 

 tain, that powdered beef is a most excellent bait to catch 

 an Eel. And i hough Sir Francis Bacon will allow the 

 Eel's life to be but ten years : yet he, in his History of 

 Life and Death, mentions a Lamprey, belonging to 

 the Roman emperor, to be made tame, and, so, kept for 

 almost threescore years ; and that such useful and plea- 

 sant observations were made of this Lamprey, that 

 Crassus the orator, who kept her, lamented her death. 

 And we read in Dr. Hakewill, that Hortensius was 

 seen to weep at the death of a Lamprey that he had kept 

 long, and loved exceedingly t. 



It is granted by all, or most men, That Eels, for 

 about six months, that is to say, the six cold months of 

 the year, stir not up and down, neither in the rivers, 

 nor in the pools in which they usually are, but get into 

 the soft earth or mud; and, there, many of them toge- 

 ther, bed themselves; and live without feeding upon 

 any thing, as, I have told yon, some swallows have 

 been observed to do in hollow trees for those six cold 



Opobalsami, Carpobalsami, & Xylobalsaml, cum suo cortice Explanaiio. Lond. 

 1598 ; and the latter, Stirpium illustrationcs. Lond. 1655. 



* The person here mentioned is John Gerard, one of the first of our 

 English Botanists; he was by profession a Surgeon; and published, in 1597, 

 an Herbal, in a large folio, dedicated to the lord treasurer Burleigh, and, 

 two years after, a Catalogue of Plants, Herbs, &c. to the number of eleven 

 hundred, raised and naturalized by himself in a large garden near his 

 house in Holborn. The latter is dedicated to Sir Walter Raleigh. 



f The Author, page 197, has cited from Pliny an instance of the fond- 

 ness of Antonia, a woman, for a tarne Lamprey, which the tenderness of 

 jier sex might perhaps excuse ; but the sagacity and docibleness of these 

 creatures seem less wonderful, than the weakness of such men as Crassu* 

 and Hortensius, in becoming mourners for the death of an Eel. 



The former of these two persons was, for this his pusillanimity, reproach- 

 ed in the senate of Rome by Domitius,in these words " Foolish Crassus! 

 " you wept for your Murena" [or Lamprey]. " That is more," retorted 

 Crassus, " than you did for your two wive*" Lord Bacon's 



