A CONFERENCE BETWIXT 



excellency 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 

 instruments? 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 rascal 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 dis- 

 course 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 I might make many observations of Land- 

 creatures, 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, Lev. xi. 2-8. which have cloven hoofs and 

 chew the cud, which I 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 

 'tis an easy one : and, Mr. Auceps, I doubt we shall hear a 

 watery discourse of it, but I hope 'twill not be a long one. 



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



Pise. Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I con- 

 fess 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 conjure ; I must tell you, it is neither our fault 

 nor our custom; we protest against it. But, pray remember, 

 I accuse nobody ; for as I 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 element that I trade in. The 

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