PISC. Good enough for that purpose; and here is a bowling green too, close by it; so, though I am myself no very good bowler, I am not totally devoted to my own pleasure; but that I have also some regard to other men's. And now, sir, you are come to the door, pray walk in, and there we will sit and talk as long as you please.

VIAT. Stay, what's here over the door? PISCATORIBUS SACRUM. Why then, I perceive I have some title here; for I am one of them, though one of the worst; and here below it is the cypher too you speak of, and 'tis prettily contrived. Has my master Walton ever been here to see it, for it seems new built?

PISC. Yes, he saw it cut in the stone before it was set up; but never in the posture it now stands; for the house was but building when he was last here, and not raised so high as the arch of the door. And I am afraid he will not see it yet; for he has lately writ me word, he doubts his coming down this summer; which, I do assure you, was the worst news he could possibly have sent me.

VIAT. Men must sometimes mind their affairs to make more room for their pleasures; and 'tis odds he is as much displeased with the business that keeps him from you, as you are that he comes not. But I am most pleased with this little house of any thing I ever saw it stands in a kind of peninsula too, with a delicate clear river about it. I dare hardly go in, lest I should not like it so well within as without; but, by your leave, I'll try. Why, this is better and better, fine lights, fine wainscoted, and all exceeding neat, with a marble table and all in the middle !

Pisc. Enough, sir, enough; I have laid open to you the part where I can worst defend myself, and now you attack me there. Come boy, set two chairs; and whilst I am taking a pipe of tobacco, which is always my breakfast, we will, if you please, talk of some other subject.

VIAT. None fitter, then, sir, for the time and place, than those instructions you promised.

PISC. I begin to doubt, by something I discover in you,

whether I am able to instruct you, or no; though, if you are really a stranger to our clear northern rivers, I still think I can; and therefore, since it is yet too early in the morning at this time of the year, to-day being but the seventh of March, to cast a fly upon the water, if you will direct me what kind of fishing for a trout I shall read you a lecture on, I am willing and ready to obey you.

VIAT. Why, sir, if you will so far oblige me, and that it may not be too troublesome to you, I would entreat you would run through the whole body of it; and I will not conceal from you that I am so far in love with you, your courtesy, and pretty More-Land seat, as to resolve to stay with you long enough by intervals (for I will not oppress you) to hear all you can say upon that subject.

PISC. You cannot oblige me more than by such a promise; and therefore, without more ceremony, I will begin to tell father Walton my you, that having read to you before, it would look like a presumption in me and, peradventure, would do so in any other man, to pretend to give lessons for angling after him, who, I do

really believe, understands as much of it at least as any man in England, did I not preacquaint you, that I am not tempted to it by any vain opinion of myself, that I am able to give you better directions; but having, from my childhood, pursued the recreation of angling in very clear rivers, truly I think by much (some of them at least) the clearest in this kingdom, and the manner of angling here with us, by reason of that exceeding clearness, being something different from the method commonly used in others, which by being not near so bright, admit of stronger tackle, and allow a nearer approach to the stream; I may peradventure give you some instructions that may be of use, even in your own rivers, and shall bring you acquainted with more flies, and show you how to make them, and with what dubbing too, than he has taken notice of in his Compleat Angler.

VIAT. I beseech you, sir, do; and if you will lend me your steel, I will light a pipe the while; for that is commonly my breakfast in a morning too.

ISC. Why then, sir, to begin methodically, as a master in any art should do (and I will not deny but that I think myself a master in this) I shall divide angling for trout or grayling into these three ways: at the top, at the bottom, in the middle. Which three ways, though they are all of them (as I shall hereafter endeavour to make it appear) in some sort common to both those kinds of fish; yet are they not so generally and absolutely so, but that they will necessarily require a distinction, which, in due place, I will also give you.

That which we call angling at the top is with a fly; at the bottom, with a ground-bait; in the middle, with a minnow or ground-bait.

Angling at the top is of two sorts; with a quick fly, or with an artificial fly.

That we call angling at the bottom is also of two sorts; by hand, or with a cork or float.

That we call angling in the middle is also of two sorts; with a minnow for a trout, or with a ground-bait for a grayling.

Of all which several sorts of angling, I will, if you can have the patience to hear me, give you the best account I can.

VIAT. The trouble will be yours, and mine the pleasure and the obligation: I beseech you therefore to proceed. Pisc. Why then, first of fly-fishing.