CARP-GOSSIP. 153 



fighting, quite unabashed, jostles with chronology ; 

 while grammar and gambling, if so inclined, may pair 

 off together. Bricklaying, glass-painting, and wrest- 

 ling, philology and surgery, tennis and theology, are 

 all there, and all represented by very proper cuts in 

 copper. Nor are the technical terms used by hunters 

 and fishers forgotten, among which last we may find 

 a chapter explaining " How every sort of fish are 

 named after their age and growth," where we learn 

 that a carp is first " a seizling, then a sprole or 

 sprale," before it arrives at the full growth and dig- 

 nity of carphood. 



The well-known Horatian motto, Carpe diem, 

 might, without any great violence to the original, be 

 rendered, Catch your carp to-day, if you can, for the 

 cunning customer may not be inclined to give you a 

 chance on the morrow. Its suspicious carefulness is 

 almost proverbial among fishers, and it even contrives 

 to elude the fatal sweep of the net, as described in 

 the Prccdium Rusticum by Vaniere, who has not 

 inappropriately been termed the French Virgil, and 

 is thus translated by Buncombe : 



" Of all the fish that swim the watery mead, 

 Not one in cunning can the carp exceed. 

 Sometimes, when nets enclose the stream, she flies 

 To hollow rocks, and there in secret lies ; 

 Sometimes the surface of the waters skims, 

 And springing o'er the net undaunted swims ; 

 Now motionless she lies beneath the flood, 



