I mean to follow this example, if I have permission to do so.

ANGLER. You shall do as you list. Only 'fish me this stream by inches,' after Mr. Cotton's instructions.

PAINTER. With all my heart, and I am so much in love with his river and his instructions, that I scarce know which to think the best.

ANGLER.-Well then, to make you love them both the more, you are to understand VIATOR caught another and another. After that PISCATOR invited him to go down the other side, lower, where you will find finer streams and 'better sport, I hope, than this;' so let us do the same.

PAINTER. Wherever you please.

ANGLER.-Now we are over the bridge and into the Peak of Derbyshire; and here it was the ingenuous fishers pleased themselves and each other with a discourse on angling and thought their recreation was innocent, as being an encourager of cheerfulness, patience, and brotherly kindness. So do you begin; but keep at your distance, lest the fishes see you, before you get a glimpse of them; for you are to remember the Dove is one of the clearest rivers in all England. Now let your quill go with the stream by the bank yonder, for hereabouts it was PISCATOR assured him, there were very good fish; 'both trout and grayling lie here; and at that GREAT STONE on the other side, 'tis ten to one a good trout gives you the 'meeting.

PAINTER. Then I'll give him all the artful temptation I can. Ah! saw you that, Mr. Angler, my quill went under the water;-and there again!

6

ANGLER.-I pray you be quiet-now strike, but as Mr. Cotton says, with moderation.' PAINTER. So, I have him tight.

ANGLER. Be gentle; he is gone, as I feared. PAINTER.-Plague on my hastiness! I incautiously strained at him: but you shall find me manage the next with greater skill.

ANGLER Trust me, you have your lesson to learn; for angling is no less an art than a pleasure, and one that requires both patience and skill.

PAINTER. That I plainly see: but I have baited my hook again: and there is another pulling at my worm. Now, if I do not vex him, call me no fisherman: aye, aye, master, you may plunge and shift as you will; but I hold you now.

ANGLER. Have a care, for he is a fine one. PAINTER. Fear me not; you shall see the manner of my handling: but there, he has thrown off into the middle of the stream; how he dives and plucks about; I hope he will not demolish my tackle.

ANGLER. Well, then, do not tear him about too much.

PAINTER. What a rage he is in! so, sohe begins to sicken. Where's the net?-thank you-we have him. Now, Sirrah: where are is as big as the other I

you? I declare he

caught up yonder. And now, brother, that I may not hinder you, leave me here alone, with my angle rod; and I beseech you let me have that pleasant book, which Mr. Walton and Mr. Cotton have printed together, with a love so communicable; that while I recline on this bank, I may remember how they have often done the same thing: and it may be I will leave my angle rod for a time, to fish for itself,' and make a landskip; for look how pleasantly the Prospect Tower hangs over our heads and I am sure that rock is a hundred feet high; and is crowned with oak and ash trees, that grow in all the crevices.

ANGLER. There are many passages of rare beauty in all this glade; and since you are so disposed, I will invite you to that rising ground, and there you shall design the fishing-house, and the Tower on the rock, so as I may have a combination of those two with the bridge, and all the river and the craggy sides. It will be a choice prospect!

PAINTER.-You are right, and it shall be done to the best of my abilities; but I'll lay my angle in the river, near to that great stone,' so that I may have my chance of a trout whilst I'm at work.

ANGLER. And because you leave your angle for my sake, I will read some passages out of Mr. Walton's COMPLETE ANGLER for your entertainment before I begin fishing. Here-is not this a favourable spot?

PAINTER.-Aye: so let us sit on this grass,

that smells so sweetly of wild flowers; and do you make a choice out of Mr. Walton's book.

ANGLER. Well, then, you may remember, that on a time, in a cheerful morning in the month of May, VENATOR, a huntsman, walked out towards Hodsden, (that is a country village not many miles from London,) where he had appointed a friend or two to meet him, that they might bestow a day on hunting the otter. Then, by the way, he fell into the company of a Gentleman Falconer, and as these were come together to Tottenham Cross, in Hertfordshire, Mr. Walton overtook them: so, after his own civil manner, he accosted the strangers, and asked of their journey and occasions, saying, You are 'well overtaken, gentlemen, a good morning to 'you both. I have stretched my legs up Tottenham Hill to overtake you, hoping your 'business may occasion you towards Ware, whither I am going this fine fresh May morning. Now, Mr. Walton possesses that benignity of spirit, and such a winning method of discourse, that you may easily believe he made the way seem shorter' by his good company.

PAINTER. He should be a pattern of cheerful gravity, or he has I know not what artifice to make himself appear so, since his writings betoken so many endowments of native gentleness.

ANGLER. But that it is no artifice I may take upon me to declare, and to say the truth, an inbred sweetness and compliance are notable, both in his look and words; insomuch that

AUCEPS, the falconer, on his first acquaintance, took the liberty to say: 'Methinks, Sir, we may promise good discourse from you that both look and speak so cheerfully.'

PAINTER. Then after those polite salutations they were all inclinable to travel pleasantly towards Ware?

ANGLER. And as they walked and conversed, they praised their several recreations: and first, Mr. AUCEPS, the falconer, exercised their attention concerning the element he used to trade in, which was the air; and he would fain make it clear, that this was an element 'that exceeds both the earth and water; and,

though I sometimes deal in both,' (this is what Mr. AUCEPS said) yet the air is most properly 'mine; I and my hawks use that most, and it 'yields us most recreation; it stops not the 'soaring of my noble, generous falcon; in it 'she ascends to such a 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 Dædalus, to have her wings scorched by the sun's 'heat, she flies so near it: but her mettle makes 'her careless of danger; for she then heeds ' nothing, but makes her nimble pinions cut the