CHAP. L] THE FIBST DAT. 49 



express a general defect in those that profess and practise 

 the excellent art of angling, I hope in time to disabuse you, 

 and make the contrary appear so evidently, that if you 

 will but have patience to hear me, I shall remove all the 

 anticipations that discourse, or time, or prejudice, have 

 possessed you with against that laudable and ancient art ; 

 for I know it is worthy the knowledge and practice of a 

 wise man. 



But, gentlemen, though I be able to do this, I am not so 

 unmannerly as to engross all the discourse to myself; and, 

 therefore, you two having declared yourselves, the one to be a 

 lover of hawks, the other of hounds, I shall be most glad to 

 hear what you can say in the commendation of that recrea- 

 tion which each of you love and practise ; and having heard 

 what you can say, I shall be glad to exercise your atten- 

 tion with what I can say concerning my own recreation and 

 art of angling, and by this means, we shall make the way 

 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 used 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, 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 ; therefore 

 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 Da3dalus, to have her 

 wings scorched by the Sun's heat, she flies so near it, but 

 her mettle makes her careless of danger ; for then she 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 



