THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 269 



Piscator. I am afraid I shall not, sir : but were you once here 

 a May or a June, if good sport would tempt you, I should then 

 expect you would sometimes see me ; for you would then say it 

 were a fine river indeed, if you had once seen the sport at the 

 height. 



Viator. Which I will do, if I live, and that you please to give 

 me leave. There was one, and there another. 



Piscator. And all this in a strange river, and with a fly of 

 your own making ! Why, what a dangerous man are you ? 



Viator. I, sir ! but who taught me ? and as Dametas says by 

 his man Dorus, so you may say by me, 



If my man such praises have, 

 What then have I that taught the knave ? * 



But what have we got here ? a rock springing up in the middle 

 of the river ! this is one of the oddest sights that ever I saw. 



Piscator. Why, sir, from that Pike f that you see standing up 

 there distant from the rock, this is called Pike Pool. And 

 young Mr Izaak Walton was so pleased with it, as to draw it in 

 landscape, in black and white, in a blank book I have at home, 

 as he has done several prospects of my house also, which I keep 

 for a memorial of his favour, and will shew you when we come 

 up to dinner. 



Viator. Has young master Izaak Walton been here, too ? 



Piscator. Yes, marry has he, sir, and that again and again, 

 too; and in France since, and at Rome, and at Venice, and I 

 can 't tell where ; but I intend to ask him a great many hard 

 questions so soon as I can see him, which will be, God willing, 

 next month. In the meantime, sir, to come to this fine stream 

 at the head of this great pool, you must venture over these 

 slippery cobbling stones. Believe me, sir, there you were 

 nimble, or else you had been down. But now you are got 

 over, look to yourself ; for, on my word, if a fish rise here, he 

 is like to be such a one as will endanger your tackle. How 

 now! 



* Sidney's Arcadia. 



f It is a rock, in the fashion of a spire-steeple, and almost as big. It 

 stands in the midst of the river Dove, and not far from Mr Cotton'* 

 house, below which place this delicate river takes a swift career betwixt 

 many mighty rocks, much higher and bigger than St Paul's church before 

 it was burnt.* And this Dove being opposed by one of the highest of 

 them, has, at last, forced itself a way through it; and after a mile's 

 concealment, appears :igain with more glory and beauty than before that 

 opposition, running through the most pleasant valleys and most fruitful 

 meadows that this nation can justly boast of. \V. 



* About the height of some hundred feet, u it appeared to me iu 1817 ; but I only 

 measured it by the eye. J. R. 



