220 ANCIENT ANGLING AUTHORS 



the Gudgeon, and the Spur being crane-necked, 

 entangled in the gills of the Jack, which, in attempt- 

 ing to extricate itself, actually pulled the unfortunate 

 person out of the Boat. He was with difficulty 

 dragged on Shore, and the Fish taken, which was of a 

 prodigious Size. 



It is, perhaps, hardly to be wondered at, that the 

 author of this treatise on The Art of Lying should 

 have chosen a pike story to help illustrate one of the 

 forms of lying : 



My next general rule is the Recitative : A rule of 

 singular use to an unfertile invention ; it requires no 

 great skill to become master of it, and extends only 

 to the marvellous. It is of great use to coffee-house 

 politicians, and news mongers in general, and chiefly 

 depends upon enumeration : it is indeed a sort of 

 branch to the ambiguous. ... I have known it 

 practised with success by a friend of mine frequently, 

 who has laughed, and been heartily laughed at, for 

 the fruitfulness of his imagination. If you tell a story 

 which happened in one county, he immediately 

 repeats the same, with a trifling variation, that 

 happened in another. If you carry it to the possible, 

 he extends it to the probable ; if you sink it to the 

 improbable, he lowers it to the impossible ; in short 

 it is the art of refining epitomised. Example : One 

 said he saw a pike in a small pond in Kent, weighing 

 40 pounds, and that one of 30 pounds was taken out 

 of its belly. My friend immediately replied, That 

 was nothing ; he had seen in Wiltshire one of 50 

 pounds weight, and a pike of 40 pounds taken out of 

 its belly ; and not only that, says he, but another 

 entire pike was taken out of the belly of it, which 

 weighed 27 pounds and a half. This was between 

 the probable and possible. The gentleman, finding 

 himself outdone, replied, It was strange, but yet he 



