194 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



Is of nothing ; or, that which is nothing worth. 



PiscATOR. My purpose was to give you some directions con- 

 cerning roach and dace, and some other inferior fish, which 

 makes the angler excellent sport ; for you know, there is more 

 pleasure in hunting the hare than in eating her : but I will for- 

 bear at this time to say more, because you see yonder come our 

 brother Peter and honest Coridon : but I will promise you, that 

 as you and I fish and walk to-morrow towards London, if I have 

 now forgotten anything that I can then remember, I will not keep 

 it from you. 



Well met, Gentlemen : this is lucky that we meet so just toge- 

 ther at this very door. Come, Hostess, where are you ? Is sup- 

 per ready ? Come, first give us drink, and be as quick as 

 you can, for I believe we are all very hungry. Well, brother 

 Peter, and Coridon, to you both ; come drink, and then tell me 

 what luck of fish : we two have caught but ten trouts, of which 

 my Scholar caught three ; look, here's eight, and a brace we 

 gave away : we have had a most pleasant day for fishing and 

 talking, and are returned home both weary and hungry, and now 

 meat and rest will be pleasant. 



Pet. And Coridon and I have had not an unpleasant day, and 

 yet I have caught but five trouts : for indeed we went to a good 

 honest ale-house, and there we played at shovel-board* half the 



* "The game of shovel-boanl," according to Strutt (Sports and Pas- 

 times of the People of J^/if^land),^' though now considered exceedingly 

 vulgar, was formerly in great repute among the nobility and gentry, few 

 of whose mansions were without a shovel-board, which was a fashionable 

 piece of furniture, and usually placed in the great hall." Henry VIII., it 

 is stated in his Privy Purse Expenses, lost various sums at shovel-board. 

 In Fynes Morrison's Itinerary, 1617, it is said of Charles Montjoy, regent 

 of Ireland, 1599, that " he delighted in study, in gardens, in riding on a 



