158 THE COMPLETE AXGLER. PART I. 



CHAP. XI. 



Obtertatian* on the TENCH, and Adtice how to angle for him. 



Piscator. THE Tench, the physician of fishes, is ob- 

 served to love ponds better than rivers, and to love pits 

 better than either: yet Camden observes, there is a 

 river in Dorsetshire that abounds with Tenches, but 

 doubtless they retire to the most deep and quiet places 

 in it. 



This fish hath very large fins, very small and smooth 

 scales, a red circle about his eyes, which are big and of a 

 gold colour, and from either angle of his mouth there 

 hangs down a little barb. In every Tench's head there 

 are two little stones which foreign physicians make great 

 use of, but he is not commended for wholesome meat, 

 though there be very much use made of them for outward 

 applications. Rondeletius says, that at his being at 

 Rome, he saw a great cure done by applying a Tench to 

 the feet of a very sick man. This, he says, was done 

 after an unusual manner, by certain Jews. And it is 

 observed that many of those people have many secrets 

 yet unknown to Christians; secrets that have never yet 

 been written, but have been (since the days of their Solo- 

 mon, who knew the nature of all things, even from the 

 cedar to the shrub) delivered by tradition, from the 

 father to the son, and so from generation to generation, 

 without writing; or, (unless it were casually,) without 

 the least communicating them to any other nation or 

 tribe; for to do that they account a profanation. And, 

 yet, it is thought that they, or some spirit worse than 

 they, first told us that lice swallowed alive, were a cer- 

 tain cure for the yellow-jaundice. This, and many other 

 medicines, were discovered by them, or by revelation; for, 

 doubtless, we attained them not by study. 



