CHAP. VI. THE COMPLETE ANGLER, 309 



ling will ever be) I think him so good a fish, as to be little 

 inferior to the best Trout that ever I tasted in my life. 



Viat. Here's another skip-jack ; and I have raised five 

 or six more at least whilst you were speaking. Well, go 

 thy way, little Dove ! thou art the finest river that ever I 

 saw, and the fullest of fish. Indeed, Sir, I like it so well, 

 that I am afraid you will be troubled with me once a year, 

 so long as we two live. 



Pise. 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. 



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

 give me leave. There was one, and there another. 



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

 your own making ! why what a dangerous man are you t 



Viat. I, Sir : but who taught me ? and as Damatas 

 says by his man Dorus, so you may say by me, 



If any 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. 



Pise. Why, Sir, from that Pike * that you see standing 

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

 And young Mr. Izaac Walton was so pleas'd with it, as 

 to draw it in landscape, in black and white, in a blank 



(1) Sidney's .Arcadia. 



(2) Tis a rock, in the fashion of a spire-steeple, and almost as big. It stands 

 in the midst of the liver Dove ; and not far from Mr. Cotton's 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 'twas burnt. And this 

 Dove being oppos'd by one of the highest of them, has, at last, for c'd itself a way 

 through it; and after a mile's concealment, appears again 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. Walton, 



