THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 17 



that Xenophon bestowed on his Cyrus, that he was a hunter of 

 wild beasts. Hunting trains up the younger nobility to the use 

 of manly exercises in their riper age. What more manly exer- 

 cise than hunting the wild boar, the stag, the buck, the fox, or 

 the hare ? how doth it preserve health, and increase strength and 

 activity ? 



And for the dogs that we use, who can commend their excel- 

 lency to that height which they deserve ? how perfect is the 

 hound at smelling, who never leaves or forsakes his first scent, 

 but follows it through so many changes and varieties of other 

 scents, even over, and in the water, and into the earth ? What 

 music doth a pack of dogs then make to any man, whose heart 

 and ears are so happy as to be set to the tune of such instru- 

 ments ? How will a right greyhound fix his eye on the best 

 buck in a herd, single him out, and follow him, and him only, 

 through a whole herd of rascall* game, and still know and then 

 kill him ? For my hounds I know the language of them, and 

 they know the language and meaning of one another, as perfectly 

 as we know the voices of those with whom we discourse daily. 



I might enlarge myself in the commendation of hunting, and 

 of the noble hound especially, as also of the docibleness of dogs 

 in general ; and 1 might make many observations of land-crea- 

 tures,! that for composition, order, figure, and constitution, 

 approach nearest to the completeness and understanding of man ; 

 especially of those creatures which Moses in the law permitted 

 to the Jews, which have cloven hoofs and chew the cud, which 1 

 shall forbear to name, because I will not be so uncivil to Mr. 

 Piscator, as not to allow him a time for the commendation of 

 angling, which he calls an art ; but doubtless it is an easy one ; 



* Rascall, means a deer too lean to kill, but more anciently any beast too 

 worthless for game. 



" Other bestys all 

 Whener ye theym finde, rascall ye them call."— ^oA-e of St. Albans. 



t The whole of this part of the dialogue strongly reminds us of Plu- 

 tarch's De Solertia Animalium, the translation of which Walton had 

 probably seen. See Bib, Pref, — S.m Ed. 



