1 14 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART t 



you did the other. So now we shall be sure to have a good 

 dish of fish to supper. 



VEN. I am glad of that ; but I have no fortune : sure, Master, 

 yours is a better rod and better tackling. 



Pise. Nay, then, take mine, and I will fish with yours. Look 

 you, Scholar, I have another. Come, do as you did before. 

 4nd now I have a bite at another. Oh me ! he has broke all ; 

 there's half a line and a good hook lost. 



VEN. Ay, and a good Trout too. 



Pise. Nay, the Trout is not lost ; for pray take notice, no 

 man can lose what he never had. 



VEN. Master, I can neither catch with the first nor second 

 angle : I have no fortune. 



Pise. Look you, Scholar, I have yet another. And now, 

 having caught three brace of Trouts, I will tell you a short tale 

 as we walk towards our breakfast. A scholar, a preacher I 

 should say, that was to preach to procure the approbation of a 

 parish, that he might be their lecturer, had got from his fellow- 

 pupil the copy of a sermon that was first preached with great 

 commendation by him that composed it : and though the bor- 

 rower of it preached it word for word, as it was at first, yet it 

 was utterly disliked as it was preached by the second to his con- 

 gregation ; which the sermon-borrower complained of to the 

 lender of it, and was thus answered: "I lent you indeed my 

 fiddle, but not my fiddlestick ; for you are to know, that every 

 one cannot make music with my words, which are fitted for my 

 own mouth. ' ' And so, my Scholar, you are to know, that as 

 the ill pronunciation or ill accenting of words in a sermon spoils 

 it. so the ill carriage of your line, or not fishing even to a foot 

 in a right place, makes you lose your labor ; and you are to 

 know, that though you have my fiddle, that is, my very rod and 

 tacklings with which you see I catch fish, yet you have not my 

 fiddlestick : that is, you yet have not skill to know how to carry 

 your hand and line, nor how to guide it to a right place : and 

 this must be taught you, for you are to remember I told you 



