1& THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



ana> iVIr. Auceps, I doubt we shall hear a watery* discourse of 

 it, b'lt I hope it will not be a long one. 



Aug. And I hope so too, though I fear it will. 



Pisc. Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I confess 

 my discourse is like to prove suitable to my recreation, calm and 

 quiet ;' we seldom take the name of God into our mouths, but 

 it is either to praise him or pray to him ; if others use it vainly 

 in the midst of their recreations, so vainly as if they meant to con- 

 jure ; I must tell you it is neither our fault nor our custom ; we 

 protest against it. But pray remember, I accuse nobody ; for as 

 1 would not make a watery discourse, so I would not put too 

 much vinegar into it ; nor would I raise the reputation of my 

 own art by the diminution or ruin of another's. And so much 

 for the prologue to what I mean to say. 



And now for the water, the clement that I trade in. The 

 water is the eldest daughter of the creation, f the element upon 

 which the spirit of God did first move, the element which God 

 commanded to bring forth living creatures abundantly ; and 

 without which, those that inhabit the land, even all creatures 

 that have breath in their nostrils, must suddenly return to putre- 

 faction. Moses, the great law-giver, and chief philosopher, 

 skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians, who was called the 

 friend of God, and knew the mind of the Almighty, names this 

 element the first in the creation ; this is the element upon which 

 the spirit of God did first move, and is the chief ingredient in the 

 creation : many philosophers have made it to comprehend all the 



' Var. We seldom make the welkin roar, we seldom take the name, 

 &c. — First and second Ed. 



* It is seldom that Walton attempts a pun ; perhaps this was accidcn 

 tal.— ^m. Ed. 



t Thales, of Miletus (540 B. C), one of the seven wise men of Greece, 

 like Homer, regarded water as the primary element, the passive principle 

 on which an intelligent Cause moved to form all things. He meant by water 

 chaos ; Cicero, De A^af. Deonnn^ i., 10 ; Aristotle, Metaphysica, i.,8'. So 

 Pindar : " Water is best." See Home's sermon on The Sea, from which it 

 would appear tliat tlie bishop took a hint out of his favorite Walton ; 

 though if he had not been so familiar with The Complete Angler, we 

 might not have suspected it, as similar passages occur in other authors. — 

 ^m. Ed. 



