PLAN OF THE WORK. XV 



time ; because, while angling, I learned my first field 

 lessons in natural history, and found out by degrees 

 the most important fact to a young inquirer, that all 

 is not to be trusted which is met with in books. For 

 example, in this very art of angling, all the books from old 

 Barker's " Dehght," to Daniell's " Field Sports," direct 

 the fly fisher to " let the flies go down the stream and 

 never to draw them against it, because it is unnatural," 

 though no angler who ever threw a fly could possibly 

 comply with this absurdity. They might as well di- 

 rect a minnow to be spun down the stream in troll- 

 ing. And as for the delights of angUng : — 



There is a pleasure in the rolling floods. 

 There is a rapture on the lonely shore. 

 There is socif ty where none intrudes, 

 By the deep sea, and music in its roar. 



Let those that think I must be angling-mad to 

 apply these exquisite lines to our art, listen to old 

 Gervase Markham, who, (I must coin a word on such 

 an occasion), introducts it in his " Couxtrey Con- 

 tentments," by saying,—" Since pleasure is a rapture 

 or power in this last age, stolne into the hearts of men, 

 and there lodged up with such a carefull guard and 

 attendance, that nothing is more supreme, or ruleth 

 with greater strength in their affections, and since all 

 are now become sonnes of pleasure, and every good is 

 measured by the delight it produceth; what worke 

 unto men can be more thankfull than the discourse of 

 that pleasure which is most comely, most honest, and 

 giveth most liberty to Divine meditation ? and that 

 without all question is the art of angUng." 



Dame Juliana Barnes, the prioress of Sopwell, also, 

 in the Book of St. Alban's, printed in 1486, well says, 



