An Aged Fish . 
357 
The pike has been known to attain to a great age. 
Gesner records the capture of a monster pike at Heilbron, 
in Suabia, in 1497, that bore a ring of brass, on which 
was the following inscription: “ I am the first fish that 
was put into this lake by the hands of the Governor of 
the Universe, Frederick the Second, on the 5th of 
October, 1232.” The weight of this veteran pike is said 
to have been 350 lbs. 
Lincolnshire pikes were proverbially good :— 
u Ancolme ele, and Witham pike, 
Search all England and find not the like,” 
Modern writers on angling endorse Falstaff’s assertion, 
that “the dace is a good bait for the old pike ” (2 Henry 
IV., iii. 2). This is the only allusion Shakspeare has to 
the pike under this name. The passage in Merry Wives 
of Windsor, “ The luce is the fresh fish, the salt fish is an 
old coat ” (i. 1, 22), has given rise to much conjecture. 
The generally received opinion is that it has reference to 
Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, the supposed original of 
Justice Shallow: three silver pikes, or lucies, on a red 
field, were, what is called, the canting arms of the Lucy 
family. Another explanation is given by Mr. Masey :— 
“ Amongst the decorations at the coronation of James I., it is very 
probable that his arms were impaled with those of his consort, the 
daughter of the King of Denmark, or hers associated with his collater¬ 
ally, and so the singular charge of the stock-fish in the Danish arms 
would be publicly known! It appears to be likely that the words were 
added in reference to the Queen’s arms, and, if not before, for the 
representation before the king in 1604.” ( Notes and Queries, 3rd 
series, xii. p. 4.) 
Mr. Keightley has another suggestion:— 
u Shallow had asserted that £ the dozen white luces ’ was an old 
coat, and Sir Hugh had misunderstood him. He here corrects him, 
telling him that the luce was an old coat too, alluding, as is supposed, 
to the arms of the Fishmongers’ Company, ‘ azure, two sea-luces in 
