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you may breed and keep Gentle thus: Take a piece of beafts liver and with a cross stick, hang it in fome corner over a pot or barrel half full of dry clay, and as the Gentles grow big, they wil fall into the barrel and fcowre themselves, and be alwayes ready for use whenfoever you incline to fifh; and thefe Gentles may be thus made til after Michaelmas: But if you defire to keep Gentles to fish with all the yeer, then get a dead Cat or a Kite, and let it be fly-blowne, and when the Gentles begin to be alive and to ftir, then bury it and them in moift earth, but as free from froft as you can, and these you may dig up at any time when you intend to use them; these wil laft till March, and about that time turn to be flies.

But if you be nice to fowl your fingers (which good Anglers feldome are) then take this bait: Get a handful of well made Mault, and

put

put it into a dish of water, and then wash and rub it betwixt your hands til you make in cleane, and as free from husks as you can; then put that water from it, and put a smal quantitie of fresh water to it, and set it in fomething that is fit for that purpose, over the fire, where it is not to boil apace, but leifurely, and very foftly, until it become fomewhat foft, which you may try by feeling it betwixt your finger and thumb; and when it is foft, then put your water from it, and then take a fharp knife, and turning the sprout end of the corn upward, with the point of your knife take the back part of the husk off from it, and yet leaving a kind of husk on the corn, or else it is marr'd; and then cut off that sprouted end (I mean a little of it) that the vvhite may appear, and fo pull off the husk on the cloven fide (as I directed you) and then cutting off a very little of the other end, that Q

fo

fo your hook may enter, and if your hook be small and good, you will find this to be a very choice bait either for Winter or Summer, you sometimes cafting a little of it into the place where your flote fwims. And to take the Roch and Dace, a good bait is the young brood of Wafps or Bees, baked or hardned in their husks in an Oven, after the bread is taken out of it, or on a firefhovel; and fo alfo is the thick blood of Sheep, being half dryed on a trencher that you may cut it into fuch pieces as may best fit the fize of your hook, and a little falt keeps it from growing black, and makes it not the worse but better; this is taken to be a choice bait, if rightly ordered.

There be feveral Oiles of a strong fmel that I have been told of, and to be excellent to tempt fish to bite, of which I could fay much, but I remember I once carried a small bottle

bottle from Sir George Haftings to Sir Henry Wotton (they were both chimical men as a great prefent; but upon enquiry, I found it did not anfwer the expectation of Sir Henry, which with the help of other circumftances, makes me have little belief in fuch things as many men talk of; not but that I think fishes both smell and hear (as I have expreft in my former difcourfe) but there is a mysterious knack, which (though it be much easier then the Philofophers-Stone, yet) is not atainable by common capacities, or elfe lies locked up in the braine or brest of some chimical men, that, like the Rofi-crutions, yet will not reveal it. But I stepped by chance into this discourse of Oiles, and fishes fmelling; and though there might be more faid, both of it, and of baits for Roch and Dace, and other flote fish, yet I will forbear it at this time,

and tell you in the next place how

Q 2

you

you are to prepare your tackling: concerning which I will for fport fake give you an old Rhime out of an old Fish-book, which will be a part of what you are to provide.

My rod,and my line,my flote and my lead,
My book,& my plummet,my whetstone & knife,
My Basket, my baits, both living and dead,
My net,and my meat for that is the chief;
Then Imust have thred & hairs great & fmal,
With mine Angling purfe,and fo you have all.

But you must have all these tack-
ling, and twice so many more, with
which, if you mean to be a fifher,you
must store your felfe: and to that
purpose I will
with you
go you either to
CharlesBrandons (neer to the Swan in
Golding-lane); or to Mr. Fletchers
in the Court which did once belong
to Dr. Nowel the Dean of Pauls, that
I told you was a good man, and a
good Fisher; it is hard by the west

end

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