THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART 1. 



dation of that recreation which each of you love and 

 practise ; and having heard what you can say, I shall be 

 glad to exercise your attention with what I can say con- 

 cerning my own recreation and art of Angling, and 

 by this means we shall make the way to seem the shorter : 

 and if you like my motion, I would have Mr. Falconer 

 to begin. 



Auc. Your motion is consented to with all my heart; 

 and to testify it, I will begin as you have desired me. 



And first, for the Element that I use to trade in, which 

 is the Air, an Element of more worth than weight, an 

 Element that doubtless exceeds both the Earth and 

 Water ; for though I sometimes deal in both, yet the Air 

 is most properly mine, I and my Hawks use that most, 

 and it yields us most recreation ; it stops not the high 

 soaring of my noble, generous Falcon ; in it she ascends 

 to such an height, as the dull eyes of beasts and fish are 

 not able to reach to ; their bodies are too gross for such 

 high elevations ; in the Air my troops of Hawks soar 

 up on high, and when they are lost in the sight of men, 

 then they attend upon and converse with the gods ; there- 

 fore I think my Eagle is so justly styled Jove's servant 

 in ordinary : and that very Falcon, that I am now going 

 to see, deserves no meaner a title, for she usually in her 

 flight endangers herself, like the son of Dsedalus, to 

 have her wings scorched by the Sun's heat, she flies so 

 near it, but her mettle makes her careless of danger ; for 

 she then heeds nothing, but makes her nimble pinions 

 cut the fluid air, and so makes her highway over the 

 steepest mountains and deepest rivers, and in her glorious 

 career looks with contempt upon those high Steeples 

 and magnificent Palaces which we adore and wonder at ; 

 from which height, I can make her to descend by a word 

 from my mouth (which she both knows and obeys) to 



