The Compleat ^Angler 



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 com- 

 posed 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 sermon-borrower complained 

 of to the lender of it ; and thus was answered : " I lent you, indeed, 

 my fiddle, but not my fiddlestick ; for you are to know that every 

 one cannot make music with my words, which are fitted to 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 labour : and you are to know, that 

 though you have my fiddle, that is, my very rod and tacklings with 

 which you see I catch fish, yet you have not my fiddlestick, that is, 

 you yet have not skill to know how to carry your hand and line, or 

 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 not 

 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 

 taste well ? and was not this place well chosen to eat it ? for this 

 sycamore-tree will shade us from the sun's heat. 



VEN. All excellent good, and my stomach excellent good too. 

 And now I remember and find that true which devout Lessius says : 

 " That poor men, and those that fast often, have much more 

 pleasure in eating than rich men and gluttons, that always feed before 

 their stomachs are empty of their last meat, and call for more : for 

 by that means they rob themselves of that pleasure that hunger brings 

 to poor men." And I do seriously approve of that saying of yours, 



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