A HARD-WORKING DIET. 419 



circumstances be duly weighed. I will invent no 

 strange things of this noble river, therewith to nobili- 

 tate and make it more honourable, but this I will 

 plainly affirm, that it neither swalloweth up bastards 

 of the Celtish brood, or casteth up the right begotten 

 that are thrown in without hurt into their mother's lap, 

 as Politian fableth of the Rhene (Epistolarum lib. 8, 

 epi. 6), nor yieldeth clots of gold as the Tagus doth ; 

 but an infinite plenty of good fish, wherewith such as 

 inhabit near unto its banks are fed and fully nourished. 

 What shall I speak of the fat sweet salmon, daily Salmon, 

 taken in this stream, and that in such plenty (after 

 the time of the smelt be passed) as no river in Europe 

 is able to exceed ! 



What store also of barbels, trouts, chenins, 

 pearches, smelts, breames, roches, daces, gudgins, 

 flounders, shrimps, &c., are commonly to be had 

 therein. I refer me to them that know, by reason 

 of experience of their daily trade in fish, better 

 than I. 



Albeit it seemeth from time to time to be as it 

 were defrauded in sundry wise of these her large 

 commodities, by the insatiable avarice of the fishermen, 

 yet this river complaineth (commonly) of no want, but 

 the more it looseth at one time, the more it yieldeth 

 at another. Only in carps it seemeth to be scant, Carp, 

 since it is not long since that kind of fish was brought 

 over into England, and but of late into this stream, 

 by the violent rage of sundry land-floods, that brake 

 open the heads and dams of divers gentlemen's 

 ponds, by which means it became (somewhat) par- 

 taker also of this said commodity, whereof earst it 

 had no portion that I could ever hear. (Oh ! that this 



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