Under that broad beech tree yonder, I sat down when I was last a-fishing; and the birds in the adjoining grove seemed to have a friendly contention with the echo that lives in a hollow near the brow of that primrose-hill. There I sat viewing the silver stream slide away, and the lambs sporting harmlessly. And as I sat, these sights so possessed my soul, that I thought as the poet hath it: "I was for that time lifted above earth; And possess'd joys not promised at my birth." But, let us further on; and we will try for a Trout. 'Tis now past five of the clock. _Venator._ I have a bite! Oh me! He has broke all; and a good hook lost! But I have no fortune! Sure yours is a better rod and tackling. _Piscator._ Nay, then, take mine, and I will fish with yours. Look you, scholar, I have another. I pray, put that net under him, but touch not my line. Well done, scholar, I thank you. And now, having three brace of Trouts, I will tell you a tale as we walk back to our hostess. A preacher that was to procure the approbation of a parish got from a fellow preacher the copy of a sermon that was preached with great commendation by him that composed it; and though the borrower preached it, word for word, yet it was utterly disliked; and on complaining to the lender of it, was thus answered: "I lent you indeed my fiddle, but not my fiddlestick; for you are to know, everyone cannot make music with my words, which are fitted for my own mouth." And though I lend you my very rod and tacklings, yet you have not my fiddlestick, that is, the skill wherewith I guide it. _Venator._ Master, you spoke very true. Yonder comes mine hostess to call us to supper; and when we have supped we will sing songs which shall give some addition of mirth to the company. _Piscator._ And so say I; for to-morrow we meet again up the water towards Waltham. _Fish of English Streams_ _Piscator._ Indeed, my good scholar, we may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did"; and so, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling. And when I see how pleasantly that meadow looks; and the earth smells so sweetly too; I think of them as Charles the Emperor did of the City of Florence; "that they were too pleasant to be looked on, but on holidays." To speak of fishes; the Salmon is accounted the king of fresh-water fish. He breeds in the rivers in the month of August, and then hastes to the sea before winter; where he recovers his strength and comes the next summer to the same river; for like persons of riches, he has his summer and winter house, to spend his life in, which is, as Sir Francis Bacon hath observed, not above ten years.