Piscator. Nay, then, take mine; and I will fish with yours. Look you,
scholar, I have another. Come, do as you did before. And now I have a
bite at another. Oh me!  he has broke all: there's half a line and a good
hook lost.

Venator. Ay, and a good Trout too.

Piscator. Nay, the Trout is not lost; for pray take notice, no man can
lose what he never had.

Venator. Master, I can neither catch with the first nor second angle: I
have no fortune.

Piscator. Look you, scholar, I have yet another. And now, having caught
three brace of Trouts, I will tell you a short tale as we walk towards our
breakfast. A scholar, a preacher I should say, that was to preach to
procure the approbation of a parish that he might be their lecturer, had
got from his fellow-pupil the copy of a sermon that was first preached
with great commendation by him that composed it: and though the
borrower of it preached it, word for word, as it was at first, yet it was
utterly disliked as it was preached by the second to his congregation,
which the sermon-borrower complained of to the lender of it: and was
thus answered: " I lent you, indeed, my fiddle, but not my fiddle-stick;
for you are to know, that every one cannot make musick with my
words, which are fitted for my own mouth". And so, my scholar, you
are to know, that as the ill pronunciation or ill accenting of words in a
sermon spoils it, so the ill carriage of your line, or not fishing even to a
foot in a right place, makes you lose your labour: and you are to know,
that though you have my fiddle, that is, my very rod and tacklings with
which you see I catch fish, yet you have not my fiddle-stick, that is, you
yet have not skill to know how to carry your hand and line, nor how to
guide it to a right place: and this must be taught you; for you are to
remember, I told you Angling is an art, either by practice or a long
observation, or both. But take this for a rule, When you fish for a Trout
with a worm, let your line have so much, and not more lead than will fit
the stream in which you fish; that is to say, more in a great troublesome
stream than in a smaller that is quieter; as near as may be, so much as
will sink the bait to the bottom, and keep it still in motion, and not
more.

But now, let's say grace, and fall to breakfast. What say you, scholar, to
the providence of an old angler ? Does not this meat taste well? and
was not this place well chosen to eat it? for this sycamore-tree will
shade us from the sun's heat.

Venator. All excellent good; and my stomach excellent good, too. And
now I remember, and find that true which devout Lessius says, " that
poor men, and those that fast often, have much more pleasure in eating
than rich men, and gluttons, that always feed before their stomachs are
empty of their last meat and call for more; for by that means they rob
themselves of that pleasure that hunger brings to poor men". And I do
seriously approve of that saying of yours, " that you had rather be a
civil, well-governed, well-grounded, temperate, poor angler, than a
drunken lord ": but I hope there is none such. However, I am certain of
this, that I have been at many very costly dinners that have not afforded
me half the content that this has done; for which I thank God and you.

And now, good master, proceed to your promised direction for making
and ordering my artificial fly.