But, Gentlemen, though I be able to do this, I am not so unmannerly as
to engross all the discourse to myself; and, therefore, you two having
declared yourselves, the one to be a lover of Hawks, the other of
Hounds, I shall be most glad to hear what you can say in the
commendation of that recreation which each of you love and practice;
and having heard what you can say, I shall be glad to exercise your
attention with what I can say concerning my own recreation and Art of
Angling, and by this means we shall make the way to seem the shorter:
and if you like my motion, I would have Mr. Falconer to begin.
Auceps. Your motion is consented to with all my heart; and to testify it,
I will begin as you have desired me.
And first, for the Element that I use to trade in, which is the Air, an
element of more worth than weight, an element that doubtless exceeds
both the Earth and Water; for though I sometimes deal in both, yet the
air is most properly mine, I and my Hawks use that most, and it yields
us most recreation. It stops not the high soaring of my noble, generous
Falcon; in it she ascends to such a height as the dull eyes of beasts and
fish are not able to reach to; their bodies are too gross for such high
elevations; in the Air my troops of Hawks soar up on high, and when
they are lost in the sight of men, then they attend upon and converse
with the Gods; therefore I think my Eagle is so justly styled Jove's
servant in ordinary: and that very Falcon, that I am now going to see,
deserves no meaner a title, for she usually in her flight endangers
herself, like the son of Daedalus, to have her wings scorched by the
sun's heat, she flies so near it, but her mettle makes her careless of
danger; for she then heeds nothing, but makes her nimble pinions cut
the fluid air, and so makes her highway over the steepest mountains and
deepest rivers, and in her glorious career looks with contempt upon
those high steeples and magnificent palaces which we adore and
wonder at; from which height, I can make her to descend by a word
from my mouth, which she both knows and obeys, to accept of meat
from my hand.
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