Love and

PETER. I marry, Sir, this is musick indeed; musick this has cheer'd my heart, and made me remember six verses in praise of musick, which I will speak to you instantly.

Musick! miraculous rhetorick, that speak'st sense
Without a tongue, excelling eloquence;

With what ease might thy errors be excus'd,
Wert thou as truly lov'd as th' art abus'd!

But though dull souls neglect, and some reprove thee.
I cannot hate thee, 'cause the Angels love thee.

VENATOR. And the repetition of these last verses of musick has called to my memory what Mr. Edmund Waller, a lover of the angle, says of love and musick.

Whilst I listen to thy voice,

Chloris! I feel my heart decay;
That powerful voice

Calls my fleeting soul away:
Oh! suppress that magic sound,
Which destroys without a wound,

Peace, Chloris! peace, or singing die,
That together you and I

To heaven may go;

For all we know

Of what the blesséd do above,

Is, that they sing, and that they love.

PISCATOR. Well remembered, brother Peter; these verses came seasonably, and we thank you heartily. Come, we will all join together, my host and all, and sing my scholar's catch over again; and then each man drink the tother cup, and to bed; and thank God we have a dry house over our heads.

PISCATOR. Well, now, good-night to everybody.

PETER. And so say I.

A

VENATOR. And so say I.

morning's

CORIDON. Good-night to you all; and I thank draught

you.

THE FIFTH DAY

PISCATOR. Good-morrow, brother Peter,
and the like to you, honest Coridon.
Come, my hostess says there is seven shillings
to pay let's each man drink a pot for his
morning's draught, and lay down his two shil-
lings, so that my hostess may not have occasion
to repent herself of being so diligent, and using
us so kindly.

PETER. The motion is liked by everybody, and so, hostess, here's your money: we anglers are all beholden to you; it will not be long ere I'll see you again; and now, brother Piscator, I wish you, and my brother your scholar, a fair day and good fortune. Come, Coridon, this is

our way.

THE FIFTH DAY-continued

VEN

Of Roach and Dace

Chapter XVII

VENATOR AND PISCATOR

ENATOR. Good master, as we go now towards London, be still so courteous as to give me more instructions; for I have several boxes in my memory, in which I will keep

N

Roach them all very safe, there shall not one of them and Dace be lost.

PISCATOR. Well, scholar, that I will: and I will hide nothing from you that I can remember, and can think may help you forward towards a perfection in this art. And because we have so much time, and I have said so little of Roach and Dace, I will give you some directions concerning them.

Some say the Roach is so called from rutilus, which they say signifies red fins.

He is a fish of no great reputation for his dainty taste; and his spawn is accounted much better than any other part of him. And you may take notice, that as the Carp is accounted the water-fox, for his cunning; so the Roach is accounted the watersheep, for his simplicity or foolishness. noted, that the Roach and Dace recover strength, and grow in season in a fortnight after spawning; the Barbel and Chub in a month; the Trout in four months; and the Salmon in the like time, if he gets into the sea, and after into fresh water.

It is

Roaches be accounted much better in the river than in a pond, though ponds usually breed the biggest. But there is a kind of bastard small Roach, that breeds in ponds, with a very forked tail, and of a very small size; which some say is bred by the Bream and right Roach; and some ponds are stored with these beyond belief; and knowing-men, that know their difference, call them Ruds: they differ from the true Roach, as much as a Herring from a Pilchard. And these bastard breed of Roach are now scattered in many rivers: but I think not in the Thames, which I believe affords the largest and fattest

a

and Dace

in this nation, especially below London Bridge. Roach The Roach is a leather-mouthed fish, and has kind of saw-like teeth in his throat. And lastly, let me tell you, the Roach makes an angler excellent sport, especially the great Roaches about London, where I think there be the best Roach-anglers. And I think the best Troutanglers be in Derbyshire; for the waters there are clear to an extremity.

Next, let me tell you, you shall fish for this Roach in Winter, with paste or gentles; in April, with worms or cadis; in the very hot months, with little white snails; or with flies under water, for he seldom takes them at the top, though the Dace will. In many of the hot months, Roaches may also be caught thus: take a May-fly, or ant-fly, sink him with a little lead to the bottom, near to the piles or posts of a bridge, or near to any posts of a weir, I mean any deep place where Roaches lie quietly, and then pull your fly up very leisurely, and usually a Roach will follow your bait up to the very top of the water, and gaze on it there, and run at it, and take it, lest the fly should fly away from him.

I have seen this done at Windsor and Henley Bridge, and great store of Roach taken; and sometimes, a Dace or Chub. And in August you may fish for them with a paste made only of the crumbs of bread, which should be of pure fine manchet; and that paste must be so tempered betwixt your hands till it be both soft and tough too: a very little water, and time, and labour, and clean hands, will make it a most excellent paste. But when you fish with it, you must have a small hook, a quick eye, and a

Baits nimble hand, or the bait is lost, and the fish too; if one may lose that which he never had. With this paste you may, as I said, take both the Roach and the Dace or Dare; for they be much of a kind, in manner of feeding, cunning, goodness, and usually in size. And therefore take this general direction, for some other baits which may concern you to take notice of: they will bite almost at any fly, but especially at ant-flies; concerning which take this direction, for it is very good.

Take the blackish ant-fly out of the mole-hill or ant-hill, in which place you shall find them in the month of June; or if that be too early in the year, then, doubtless, you may find them in July, August, and most of September. Gather them alive, with both their wings: and then put them into a glass that will hold a quart or a pottle; but first put into the glass a handful, or more, of the moist earth out of which you gather them, and as much of the roots of the grass of the said hillock; and then put in the flies gently, that they lose not their wings: lay a clod of earth over it; and then so many as are put into the glass, without bruising, will live there a month or more, and be always in readiness for you to fish with but if you would have them keep longer, then get any great earthen pot, or barrel of three or four gallons, which is better, then wash your barrel with water and honey; and having put into it a quantity of earth and grass roots, then put in your flies, and cover it, and they will live a quarter of a year. These, in any stream and clear water, are a deadly bait for Roach or Dace, or for a Chub: and your rule is to fish not less than a handful from the bottom.