The Ten Commandments breathe their last The girls are young, the wine is old, The baker bakes for very love, You pocket just what fancy seeks, Fear no mundane revealers. The banks delight in overdrafts, The tailors never press on you. No rents or ripples ever spoil The varying breeks or dress on you. The things our sages here decry Are just the things they like, above, No Mrs. Grundy at the feast You have no duties to yourself, Your family or nation; E No Holy Orders check, nor those For years I've lived most soberly Though here I live as tolerant V.B.P. The roach fisher, for we must not quite forget him, will do well to remember that the unexpected happens-particularly in angling. Who would think that mustard, pepper, ginger, or assaftoida would fascinate the palate of roaches? Yet it appears to do so, on the same principle that harmless and even benevolent invalids always like drinks with startling names, such as the corpse reviver, point blank and fixed bayonets of modern times, or the Huff cap, Stride wide and Merry-do-down of our more humorous sires. Certainly strong flavours do not deter the roach. He might be tried with the condiments in the water, which mitigate him when out of it, say with Yorkshire relish, vinegar, catsup, chutney, or pepsalia but these ideas are mere suggestions for the judicious reader. Most roachers have some favourite bait of their own, for this fish has a meek willingness to oblige, if only he is disposed to traffic at all. There is something pathetic too, in this also. Perhaps his cringing suavity is just because he recognises that he has been long shut out from pageants and royal banquets. When Charles V visited England (1522) the Lord Mayor of London was told to assign him two fishmongers to supply him with "pikes, tenches, bremes, caluer, salmon and such oder deyntes of the fresshe water " and diverse gentlemen had letters bidding them to supply these with "carpis, trowttes, rosting eles and such other deyntes as they have in their ponds and fresche rivers." Even then there was no heavy call for our friend. Nay, two years before, though pyke, sturgeon, and bremes figure in the "III principall Messes on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Pyke and Sturgeon in the VI and the XXX other Messes," roach. was even then nowhere to be found at Court. He had to be content with mere churchmen. And yet in winter he is better than a bream anyday: only do not eat him in summer and, unless "compelled by hunger and request of friends," keep clear of him at any time if he comes from ponds, stagnant waters and fenny pools. If needs must, then disguise him with onions or garlic, have him made into rissoles with curious herbs, but do not face him in his nude simplicity. That is an idea which dates before the revival of learning, before the Wars of the Roses. But let us not scorn the Roach for all this. He has higher certificates than royal menus can give him, for St. Francis and his first brethren adopted him at Portiuncula. There they caught him, with what baits we know not, and they offered him yearly in tribute to the lordly Benedictine house, who granted to them their little mean plot. These gentlemen in return gave to the Blessed Francis a vessel of oil.* Could any fish, after those of Gennesaret itself, receive a higher honour? And do they still bite well at Portiuncula, as in 1211? Or do they sulk for their saint? * See Speculum perfectionis 55. CHAP. IV-Prophecy & Research. T HERE is something humiliating to the pride of men in the society of fishes. You elaborate a theory and they take a Puck-like delight in demolishing it. You forecast a day of failure because chill wind, low clear water, falling barometer, fainting thermometer, and, indeed, everything is against you. Nevertheless to keep tryst, or out of sheer perversity, you persist. Then they take up Clough's dying tale, "If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars," and the basket plumps to cracking point. Next week, the skies are grey, the air still; every instrument in the house unites in a cheerful chorus "Go up to Ramoth Gilead and prosper;" old anglers congratulate you as you meet them upon the road; your baits and tackle were never better; the stream is exactly as it was on your most memorable ventures; and yet you come home almost inclined to forswear angling and to live among carnivor |