HO IV TO FISH FOR TROUT. 179 



be forced to patch up, for it is so long since I learnt it, that 

 I have forgotten a part of it. But, come, now it hath done 

 raining, let 's stretch our legs a little in a gentle walk to the 

 river, and try what interest our angles will pay us for lend- 

 ing them so long to be used by the trouts : lent them, 

 indeed, like usurers, for our profit and their destruction. 



VEN. Oh me ! look you, master, a fish ! a fish ! Oh, alas, 

 master, I have lost her ! 



Pise. Ay, marry, Sir, that was a good fish indeed ! If I 

 had had the luck to have taken up that rod, then 't is twenty 

 to one he should not have broke my line by running to the 

 rod's end, as you suffered him. I would have held him 

 within the bent of my rod (unless he had been fellow to the 

 great trout that is near an ell long, which was of such a 

 length and depth that he had his picture drawn, and now is 

 to be seen at mine host Rickabie's, at the George, in Ware) ; 

 and it may be by giving that very great trout the rod, that 

 is, by casting it to him into the water, I might have caught 

 him at the long run ; for so I use always to do when I meet 

 with an overgrown fish, and you will learn to do so too here- 

 after ; for I tell you, scholar, fishing is an art or, at least, 

 it is an art to catch fish. 



VKN. But, master, I have heard that the great trout you 

 speak of is a salmon. 



Pise. Trust me, scholar, I know not what to say to it. 

 There are many country people that believe hares change 

 sexes every year ; and there be very many learned men 

 think so too, for in their dissecting them, they find many 

 reasons to incline them to that belief. And to make the 

 wonder seem yet less that hares change sexes, note that 

 Doctor Mer. Casaubon affirms in his book of credible and 



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