CHAPTER II.

A Conference at Supper between the Angler, the Painter, and the Hoft.

H

Angler.

Jow do you, Mr. Marsh?

Hoft. Gentlemen, your servant

at command.

Painter. Can we have good entertainment and clean beds at your houfe? Hoft. Sir! we fhall do our utmost to give you fatisfaction and for beds, I may say there are not better in the Peak, with 'fheets laid up ' in lavender.' What, ho! boy, take these gentlemen's fish pannier and angle rods. Will it please you, Sirs, to walk into the parlour?

Angler. It is well; and the fooner you can make ready for fupper the better pleased we shall be; for we have walked all the way from Derby; and here is a brace of trouts: but look you, Mr. Marsh, one condition I would make,

and that is, you dress them according to a fancy I have.

Hoft. Sir, you shall be obeyed; nevertheless we have a notable method for boiling a trout or grayling in these parts, that I never knew to displease any anglers.

Angler. But if you know not the manner recommended by Mr. Cotton, who lives at Beresford Hall, I fhall not be perfuaded to think them skilfully done.

Hoft. Sir, I am now your most humble fervant, and willing to dress these trouts according to your wishes, seeing you approve the method of noble Mr. Cotton.

Painter. Then you know Mr. Charles Cotton, of Beresford Hall?

Hoft. That, Sir, by your leave, I should do, and know him well too; for I was a fervant in the family when his right honourable father lived at the hall, of whom only this I may declare, he was loved and esteemed for his gentle qualities of nature by the late moft learned Lord Chancellor* of Oxford and England, and was united with him in the fame bold

* LORD CLARENDON, who greatly praises him in his Characters of Eminent Men,' in the reigns of Charles I. and II.—ED.

and generous zeal for the fervice of the late king, of pious memory: and I was the first that taught Mr. Charles Cotton, in his happy youthful days, to fish in the River Dove, when he was a mere schoolboy, and to mew and cast and lure his falcon-gentles, and all manner of hawks. And fince that time he has often had me to a day's fishing with him, and by his native condescension makes me find myself at ease in his company, notwithstanding my humble conditions.

Angler. Indeed! then I may tell you this gentleman and myself have come all the way from Derby, and fome miles beyond that, to find his fishing-house, and to spend a day or two angling in the vallies of the Dove.

Hoft. You are not the first gentlemen by many, that have done this; and you will not think your labour loft when you have seen the Fishing-house; for that it is a wonderful ingenious place, and most skilfully adorned, no perfon, who has seen it, can deny. But will you be pleased to fit down in these elbow chairs, and reft yourselves till the trouts are ready.

Painter. Willingly: for I could not walk another Derbyshire mile, if it were to purchase a king's ransom. And now, Mr. Marsh, I pray you, look to the fupper, that it be ferved quickly,

K

for we are nigh famished.

Angler. And remember to give the trouts 'three fcotches with a knife.

Hoft Aye, Sir, and to the bone on one fide only.' I go to fee it done as you desire.—

Angler. Did you obferve, brother, how this honest host, for fuch I doubt not he is, took up the words of Mr. Cotton? you may depend he hath read the Inftructions how to angle for a 'trout or grayling in a clear stream.' We are like to pass a pleasant evening here at Alstonfields, and to learn more of Mr. Cotton, and of his pretty moorland feat' than we had any hope to do when we began our journey. What a neat parlour is here, and the boards all fanded. over!

Painter. And fee how mine hoft has garnish't out his walls with little pictures; here's the hiftory of Judith, and Sufanna, and Daniel in the lion's den; and the furniture not amifs; the oaken cabinet, and tables polished like a mirror.

Angler. And here are books in the window; look you, Fox's Book of Martyrs, and Bishop Taylor's 'Holy Living and Dying;' and here before all other books, is the GREAT BIBLE,*

* THE HOLY BIBLE, conteyning the Old Testament,

that King James caused to be tranflated out of the Hebrew and Greek tongues by thofe forty feven most pious and learned divines of our holy church, thereby opening to the people of these realms those fountains of living waters, more precious than rivers of gold; for he that thirsteth after them in an honest and believing heart, shall hear THE SPIRIT AND THE BRIDE SAY, 'Come; 'let him that is athira come; and wholo‘ever will, let him take of the water of life 'freely.' Happy were they to be chofenthrice happy to unlock and deliver to all ages the mysterious treasures of God's Holy Word. Of these I may not forget charitable Dr. Launcelot Andrewes.

Painter. He that refused to be confecrated a bishop, because he would not be perfuaded to give a helping hand in the spoil of the ecclefiaftical revenues.

:

and the New; newly tranflated out of the Originall Tongues and with the former Translations diligently compared and revised by His Majefties fpecial Commandement.

Appointed to be read in Churches.

IMPRINTED at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the King's Moft Excellent Majeftie. ANNO DOм. 1611.-ED.

+ Rev. xxii. 17.