THE ANCIENTS. 11 



The art of Angling is mentioned in Homer. In Pope's 

 version of the Iliad, we have the following passage : 



" As from some rock that overhangs the flood, 

 The silent fisher casts the insidious food j 

 With fraudful care he waits the finny prize, 

 And sudden lifts it quivering to the skies." 



We find likewise in Homer that the companions of 

 Ulysses, being pressed by hunger, partook of some fish ; 

 and the poet makes a kind of apology for them by saying, 

 " Hunger pressed their digestive organs." 7 



We are familiar, from our schoolboy days, with the 

 Tables of ZEsop, and that of the Fisherman and the Little 

 Fish. Here is the English translation imitated from the 

 French of La Fontaine. 



" The smallest fry grow fish in time, 



If not cut off before their prime ; 

 But he that throws them in the stream 



In hopes when grown to take again, 

 Will very likely loose his aim, 



And bait his hook in vain. 



" A little carp from spawn just hatch' d, 

 Once on a luckless day was catch' d j 

 The fisher smiling at his prey ; 

 Quoth he, 'tis something to begin, 

 Into my wallet show the way 

 For greater to go in. 



7 Odyss. xii, 332. 



