sport presently if there be any store of Pikes: or these live-baits may make sport, being tied about the body or wings of a goose or duck, and she chased over a pond. And the like may be done with turning three or four live-baits, thus fastened to bladders, or boughs, or bottles of hay or flags, to swim down a river, whilst you walk quietly alone on the shore, and are still in expectation of sport. The rest must be taught you by practice, for time will not allow me to say more of this kind of fishing with live-baits.

And for your dead-bait for a Pike, for that you may be taught by one day's going a-fishing with me, or any other body that fishes for him; for the baiting your hook with a dead Gudgeon or a Roach, and moving it up and down the water, is too easy a thing to take up any time to direct you to do it: and yet, because I cut you short in that, I will commute for it by telling you that that was told me for a secret. It is this:

Dissolve Gum of Ivy in Oil of Spike, and therewith anoint your dead-bait for a Pike; and then cast it into a likely place, and when it has lain a short time at the bottom, draw it towards the top of the water and so up the stream: and it is more than likely that you have a Pike follow with more than common eagerness.

And some affirm, that any bait anointed with the marrow of the thigh-bone of an Hern, is a great temptation to any fish.

These have not been tried by me, but told me by

a friend of note, that pretended to do me a courtesy. But if this direction to catch a Pike thus do you no good, yet I am certain this direction how to roast him when he is caught is choicely good, for I have tried it; and it is somewhat the better for not being common but with my direction you must take this caution, that your Pike must not be a small one, that is, it must be more than half a yard, and should be bigger.

First, open your Pike at the gills, and, if need be, cut also a little slit towards the belly. Out of these take his guts; and keep his liver, which you are to shred very small with thyme, sweet marjoram, and a little winter-savory; to these put some pickled oysters, and some anchovies, two or three; both these last whole, for the anchovies will melt, and the oysters should not; to these you must add also a pound of sweet butter, which you are to mix with the herbs that are shred, and let them all be well salted. If the Pike be more than a yard long, then you may put into these herbs more than a pound, or if he be less, then less butter will suffice. These being thus mixed, with a blade or two of mace, must be put into the Pike's belly, and then his belly so sewed up, as to keep all the butter in his belly if it be possible; if not, then as much of it as you possibly can but take not off the scales. Then you are to thrust the spit through his mouth, out at his tail; and then take four, or five, or six, split sticks or very thin laths, and a convenient quantity of

tape or filleting; these laths are to be tied round about the Pike's body from his head to his tail, and the tape tied somewhat thick to prevent his breaking or falling off from the spit. Let him be roasted very leisurely, and often basted with claret-wine, and anchovies, and butter, mixed together; and also with what moisture falls from him into the pan. When you have roasted him sufficiently, you are to hold under him, when you unwind or cut the tape that ties him, such a dish as you purpose to eat him out of; and let him fall into it with the sauce that is roasted in his belly; and by this means the Pike will be kept unbroken and complete. Then, to the sauce which was within, and also that sauce in the pan, you are to add a fit quantity of the best butter, and to squeeze the juice of three or four oranges: lastly, you may either put into the Pike with the oysters, two cloves of garlick, and take it whole out, when the Pike is cut off the spit; or to give the sauce a haut-gout, let the dish into which you let the Pike fall, be rubbed with it: The using or not using of this garlick is left to your discretion. M. B.

This dish of meat is too good for any but Anglers, or very honest men; and I trust, you will prove both, and therefore I have trusted you with this

secret.

Let me next tell you, that Gesner tells us there are no Pikes in Spain, and that the largest are in the lake Thrasymene in Italy; and the next, if not

equal to them, are the Pikes of England; and that in England, Lincolnshire boasteth to have the biggest. Just so doth Sussex boast of four sorts of fish; namely, an Arundel Mullet, a Chichester Lobster, a Shelsey Cockle, and an Amerly Trout.

But I will take up no more of your time with this relation, but proceed to give you some observations of the Carp, and how to angle for him, and to dress him :- but not till he is caught,

THE FOURTH DAY.

CHAP. IX. Observations of the CARP, with Directions how to Fish for him.

THE

PISCATOR.

HE Carp is the Queen of Rivers: a stately, a good, and a very subtle, fish, that was not at first bred, nor hath been long, in England, but is now naturalised. It is said, they were brought hither by one Mr. Mascal, a gentleman that then lived at Plumsted in Sussex, a County that abounds more with this fish than any in this nation.

You may remember that I told you, Gesner says, there are no Pikes in Spain; and doubtless, there was a time, about a hundred or a few more years ago, when there were no Carps in England, as may seem to be affirmed by Sir Richard Baker, in whose Chronicle you may find these verses.

Hops and Turkies, Carps and Beer,
Came into England all in a year.

And doubtless, as of sea-fish the Herring dies soonest out of the water, and of fresh-water-fish the Trout, so, except the Eel, the Carp endures most hardness, and lives longest out of his own proper element: and, therefore, the report of the Carp's being brought out of a foreign country into this nation, is the more probable.