46 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



allow him a time for the commendation of angling, which 

 he calls an art ; but doubtless it is an easy one ; and, Mr. 

 Auceps, I doubt we shall hear a watery discourse of it, but 

 I hope it will not be a long one. 



Auc. And I hope so too, though I fear it will. 



PlSC. Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I 

 confess my discourse is like to prove suitable to my recrea- 

 tion, calm, and quiet : we seldom take the name of God into 

 our mouths but it is either to praise Him or pray to Him ; if 

 others use it vainly in the midst of their recreations, so vainly 

 as if they meant to conjure, I must tell you that it is neither 

 our fault nor our custom ; we protest against it. But pray 

 remember, I accuse nobody; for as I would not make a 

 "watery discourse," so I would not put too much vinegar 

 into it, nor would I raise the reputation of my own art by 

 the diminution or ruin of another's. And so much for the 

 prologue to what I mean to say. 



And now for the water, the element that I trade in. The 

 water is the eldest daughter of the creation, the element upon 

 which the Spirit of God did first move, the element which 

 God commanded to bring forth living creatures abundantly; 

 and without which, those that inhabit the land, even all 

 creatures that have breath in their nostrils, must suddenly 

 return to putrefaction. Moses, the great lawgiver and chief 

 philosopher, skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians, who 

 was called the friend of God, and knew the mind of the 

 Almighty, names this element the first in the creation ; this 

 is the element upon which the Spirit of God did first move, 

 and is the chief ingredient in the creation : many philoso- 

 phers have made it to comprehend all the other elements, 

 and most allow it the chiefest in the mixtion of all living 

 creatures. 



