THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 49 



hare ? How doth it preserve health, and increase strength and 

 activity ! 



And for the dogs that we use, who can commend their 

 excellency to that height which they deserve ! How perfect is 

 the hound at smelling, who never leaves or forsakes his first 

 scent, but follows it through so many changes and varieties of 

 other scents, even over and in the water, and into the earth ! 

 What music doth a pack of dogs then make to any man, whose 

 heart and ears are so happy as to be set to the tune of such 

 instruments ! How will a right greyhound fix his eye on the 

 best buck in a herd, single him out, and follow him, and him 

 only, through a whole herd of rascal game, and still know and 

 then kill him ! For my hounds, I know the language of them, 

 and they know the language and meaning of one another as 

 perfectly as we know the voices of those with whom we dis- 

 course daily. 



I might enlarge myself in the commendation of hunting, and 

 of the noble hound especially, as also of the docibleness of dogs 

 in general ; and I might make many observations of land creatures, 

 that, for composition, order, figure, and constitution, approach 

 nearest to the completeness and understanding of man ; especially 

 of those creatures, which Moses in the Law permitted to the 

 Jews, which have cloven hoofs, and chew the cud ; which I 

 shall forbear to name, because I will not be so uncivil to Mr 

 Piscator, as not to 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. 



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



Piscator. Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I 

 confess my discourse is like to prove suitable to my recreation, 

 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 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 



* This affords, I think, an irrefragable answer to Lord Byron's libel on 

 our excellent author, where he says, 



And angling too, that solitary vice, 

 Whatever Izaak Walton sings or says : 

 The quaint old cruel coxcomb, in his gullet 

 Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it. J. R. 



