HALIEUS—POIETES—PHYSICUS—ORNITHER. INTRODUCTORY CONVERSATION—SYMPOSIAC. _Scene, London._ PHYS.—HALIEUS, I dare say you know where this excellent trout was caught: I never ate a better fish of the kind. HAL.—I ought to know, as it was this morning in the waters of the Wandle, not ten miles from the place where we sit, and it is through my means that you see it at table. PHYS.—Of your own catching? HAL.—Yes, with the artificial fly. PHYS.—I admire the fish, but I cannot admire the art by which it was taken; and I wonder how a man of your active mind and enthusiastic character can enjoy what appears to me a stupid and melancholy occupation. HAL.—I might as well wonder in my turn, that a man of your discursive imagination and disposition to contemplation should not admire this occupation, and that you should venture to call it either stupid or melancholy. PHYS.—I have at least the authority of a great moralist, Johnson, for its folly. HAL.—I will allow no man, however great a philosopher, or moralist, to abuse an occupation he has not tried; and as well as I remember, this same illustrious person praised the book and the character of the great Patriarch of Anglers, Isaac Walton. PHYS.—There is another celebrated man, however, who has abused this your patriarch, Lord Byron, and that in terms not very qualified. He calls him, as well as I can recollect, “A quaint old cruel coxcomb.”[1] I must say, a practice of this great fisherman, where he recommends you to pass the hook through the body of a frog with care, as though you loved him, in order to keep him alive longer, cannot but be considered as cruel. HAL.—I do not justify either the expression or the practice of Walton in this instance; but remember, _I_ fish only with inanimate baits, or imitations of them, and I will not exhume or expose the ashes of the dead, nor vindicate the memory of Walton, at the expense of Byron, who, like Johnson, was no fisherman: but the moral and religious habits of Walton, his simplicity of manners, and his well-spent life, exonerate him from the charge of cruelty; and the book of a coxcomb would not have been so great a favourite with most persons of refined taste. A noble lady, long distinguished at court for pre-eminent beauty and grace, and whose mind possesses undying charms, has written some lines in my copy of Walton, which, if you will allow me, I will repeat to you. Albeit, gentle Angler, I Delight not in thy trade, Yet in thy pages there doth lie So much of quaint simplicity, So much of mind, Of such good kind, That none need be afraid, Caught by thy cunning bait, this book, To be ensnared on thy hook.