6 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



Pisc. You know, gentlemen, 'tis an easy thing to scoff at any- 

 art or recreation ; a little wit, mixed with ill-nature, confidence, 

 and malice, will do it : but though they often venture boldly, yet 

 they are often caught even in their own trap, according to that 

 of Lucian, the father of the family of scoffers. 



" Lucian well skilVd in scoffing this hath writ: 

 Friend, that's your folly, which you thiJik your wit ; 

 This you vent oft, void both of wit and fear. 

 Meaning another, when yourself you jeer."* 



If to this you add what Solomon says of Scoffers, that " they are 

 an abomination to mankind, "f let him that thinks fit, scoff on, 

 and be a scoffer still ; but I account them enemies to me, and to 

 all that love virtue and angling. 



And for you that have heard many gravcj serious men pity 



(trust me, Sir) we enjoy a contentednesse above the reach of 

 such dispositions. 



And as for any scoffer, qui mockat mockaWur. Let mee tell 

 you (that you may tell him) what the wittie French-man sayes' 



* The epigram is altered by Walton from the version of it in " Certain 

 select Dialogues of Lucian, together with his true History, translated from 

 the Greek into Engljsh, by Mr. Francis Hickes, Oxford, 1634, 4to." The 

 epigram is signed T. H., i. e., Thomas Hickes, the son, who published the 

 work, and reads thus : 



" Lucian well skilled in old toyes this hath writ; 

 For all's but folly that men think is wit ; 

 No settl'd judgment doth in men appear, 

 But thou admirest that which others jeer." 



While speaking of Lucian, the reader's attention may be called to a 

 keen satire of his on the mercenary philosophers of his time, in a dialogue 

 called The Fisherman, the point of which is this:. Lucian borrows an 

 angle, baits his hook with gold and figs, seats himself on the Pelasgic wall 

 and angles in the city ; when he catches, one after another, an Epicurean, a 

 Cynic, a Platonist, a Peripatetic, a Stoic, &c. It is admirably carried 

 out, and has been more than once imitated by modern writers. — im. Ed. 



t Proverbs xxiv., 19, " The thought of foolishness is sin ; and a scorner 

 is an abomination to mankind." 



» The Lord Mountagne in his Apol. for Ra. Sehox\±—lVaIto7i's own Note. 



