INTRODUCTION. 



I HE English poets of the Art of AngUng perplex us neither with their 

 nuiltitude, nor their magnitude. To some three or four of them may 

 be assigned a place — shall we say midway, by courtesy? — on the 

 ledges of Parnassus ; the rest are innocent of all altitudes whatsoever, except 

 those of Grub-street garrets, or the stilts of an absurd vanity. 



Foremost among the select few, by right of seniority, and perhaps by poetic 

 right as well, we have " I. D.," who in the cool dawn of the seventeenth century, 

 and when the Elizabethan men were passing, one by one, into the shadow, " sang 

 to the echo," (for he seems to have had no other audience in his own day and 

 generation.) these '• Secrets of Angling," himself being destined to become a 

 greater secret than any he revealed. 



His publisher, " R. J." (Roger Jackson) states, in his dedication of the poem 

 to :\Ir. John Harborne of Tackley, that the author " intended to have printed it in 

 his life, but was prevented by "death." Other motives of reticence, however, 

 besides that final one, may have had their weight ; some faintness of heart, for 

 instance, and some wisdom of discretion. The epoch was a trying one for 

 the minor muse. The Elizabethan bards, as I have said, were dying out, but 

 the national air still vibrated to their divine singing — the national heart was still 

 at fever-heat, with " Fair}' Queens," and " Passionate Pilgrims," with " heavenly 

 Unas," and heroic " Lucreces." It would scarcely have been strange, if a poet 

 unknown to fame, had recoiled from bringing into competition with these and 

 such as these, a simple song of bleak and bream. But whatever the real 

 motive may have been, I. D. of a surety closed his eyes on all the shows of 

 this world, if not a "mute," at least an "inglorious" poet, and unconsoled, 



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