94 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



you, Scholar, I have another; come, do as you did before. And 

 now I have a bite at another. Oh me ! he has broke all ; there's 

 half a line and a good hook lost. 



Ven. Ay, and a good trout too. 



Pisc. Nay, the trout is not lost ; for pray take notice, no man 

 can lose what he never had. 



Ven. Master, I can neither catch with the first nor second 

 anjile : I have no fortune. 



Pisc. Look you, Scholar, I have yet another : and now having 

 caught three brace of trouts, I will tell you a short tale as we 

 walk towards our breakfast : A scholar, a preacher I should say, 

 that was to preach to procure the approbation of a parish, that he 

 might be their lecturer, had got from his fellow-pupil the copy of 

 a sermon that was first preached with great commendation by 

 him that composed it ; and though the borrower of it preached it 

 word for word as it was at first, yet it was utterly disliked as it 

 was preached by the second to his congregation : which the ser- 

 mon-borrower complained of to the lender of it, and was thus 

 answered : " I lent you indeed my fiddle, but not my fiddle-stick ; 

 for you are to know, that every one cannot make music with my 

 words, which are fitted for my own mouth." And so, my Scholar, 

 you are to know, that as the ill pronunciation or ill accenting of 

 words in a sermon spoils it, so the ill carriage of your line, or 

 not fishing even to a foot in a right place, makes you lose your 

 labor : and you are to know, that though you have my fiddle, 

 that is, my very rod and tackling with which you see I catch 

 fish, yet you have not my fiddle-stick ; that is, you yet have not 

 skill to know how to carry your hand and line, nor how to guide 

 it to a right place : and this must be taught you, — for you are to 

 remember I told you angling is an art, — either by practice, or a 

 long observation, or both. But take this for a rule, when you 

 fish for a trout with a worm, let your line have so much, and no 

 more lead than will fit the stream in which you fish ; that is to 

 say, more in a great troublesome stream than in a smaller that 

 is quieter ; as near as may be, so much as will sink the bait to 

 the bottom, and keep it still in motion, and not more. 



But now let's say grace and fall to breakfast : what say you, 

 Scholar, to the providence of an old angler ? Does not this meat 



