CHAP. i. THE FIRST DAY. 17 



so evidently, that, if you will but have patience to hear me, I 



""or 

 ~ 



_ 



prejudice, have possessed y o u~\v i thagai nstth at laudable and 

 alicieTtt-artT^oF'I know it worthy tEe knowledge and practice 

 oflTwise man. 



But, gentlemen, though I be able to do this, J am not so 

 unmannerly as to engross all the discourse to myself; and, 

 therefore, you two having declared yourselves, the one to be 

 a lover of hawks, the other of hounds, I shall be most glad to 

 hear what you can say in the commendation of that recreation 

 which each of you love and practise: and having heard what 

 you can say, I shall be glad to exercise your attention with what 

 I can say concerning my own recreation and art of angling, and 

 by this means we shall make the way to seem the shorter ; and 

 if you like my motion, I would have Mr. Falconer to begin. 



Auc. Your motion is consented to with all my heart ; and to 

 testify it, I will begin as you have desired me. 



And first, for the element that I use to trade in, which is 

 the air, an element of more worth than weight an element 

 that doubtless exceeds both the earth and water; for though 

 I sometimes deal in both, yet the air is most properly mine, 

 I and my hawks use that most, and it yields us most recrea- 

 tion : it stops not the high soaring of my noble, generous 

 falcon; in it she ascends to such a height as the dull eyes of 

 beasts and fish are not able to reach to ; their bodies are too 

 gross for such high elevations ; in the air my troops of hawks 

 soar up on high, and when they are lost in the sight of men, 

 then they attend upon and converse with the gods ; therefore 

 I think my eagle is so justly styled " Jove's servant in ordi- 

 nary ;" and that very falcon that I am now going to see, 

 deserves no meaner title, for she usually in her flight endangers 



h Prj^[^Jjlf^hg^ on nf T)flpHa1iis7^(lJl3JJLh^wTTT^ C d 



by the sun's heat, she-flies-^D near it ; but her mettle makes 

 her careless of danger; for then she heeds nothing, but 

 makes her nimble pinions cut the fluid air, and so makes her 

 highway over the steepest mountains and deepest rivers, and in 

 her glorious career looks with contempt upon those high steeples 



