The speaker was but newly come, and had been talking with my host when he heard the declamation of Master van Mieris. I turned to look at him and found a tall, comely man, delicately featured, but with a chin as grim as a marshal's. He stood amid the crowd of us with such an easy carriage of dignity and breeding that one and all looked at him in admiration. His broad, high brow was marked with many lines, as if he had schemed and meditated much. He was dressed in the pink of the fashion, and in his gestures and tones I fancied I discerned something courtier-like, as of a man who had travelled and seen much of courts and kingships. He spoke so modestly, and withal so wisely, that the unhappy Pieter looked wofully crestfallen, and would not utter another word.
A minute later, finding Master Wishart at hand, I plucked him by the sleeve.
"Tell me, who is that man there, the one who spoke?"
"Ah," said he, "you do not know him, perhaps you do not know his name; but be sure that when you are old you will look back upon this day with pleasure, and thank Providence for bringing you within sight of such a man. That is the great Gottfried Leibnitz, who has been dwelling for a short space in London, and now goes to Hanover as Duke Frederick's councillor."
But just at this moment all thoughts of philosophy and philosophers were banished from my mind by the sudden arrival of a new guest. This was no other than the worthy professor of Greek, Master Quellinus, who came in arrayed in the coarsest clothes, with a gigantic basket suspended over his shoulders by a strap, and a rod like a weaver's beam in his hand. In truth the little man presented a curious sight. For the great rod would not stay balanced on his shoulders, but must ever slip upward and seriously endanger the equipoise of its owner. His boots were very wide and splashed with mud, and round the broad-brimmed hat which he wore I discerned many lengths of horsehair. My heart warmed to the man, for I perceived he was a fellow-fisherman, and, in that strange place, it was the next best thing to being a fellow Scot.
He greeted us with great joviality. "A good day to you, my masters," he cried; "and God send you the ease which you love. Here have I been bearing the heat and burden of the day, all in order that lazy folk should have carp to eat when they wish it. Gad, I am tired and wet and dirty, this last beyond expression. For Heaven's sake, Master Wishart, take me where I may clean myself."
The host led the fisherman away, and soon he returned, spruce and smiling once more. He sat down heavily on a seat beside me. "Now, Master Burnet," says he, "you must not think it unworthy of a learned Grecian to follow the sport of the angle, for did not the most famous of their writers praise it, not to speak of the example of the Apostles?"
I tried hard to think if this were true.
"Homer, at any rate," I urged, "had no great opinion of fish and their catchers, though that was the worse for Homer, for I am an angler myself, and can understand your likings."
"Then I will have your hand on it," said he, "and may Homer go to the devil. But Theocritus and Oppian, ay, even Plato, mention it without disrespect, and does not Horace himself say 'Piscemur'? Surely we have authority."