( 192 ) 



CONCLUSION. 



iISHING is a kind of hunting by water, be it 

 with nets, weeles, baits, angling, or otherwise, 

 and pelds all out as much pleasure to some 

 men as dogs or hawks. " When they draw their fish 

 upon the bank," saith Nic. Henselius Silesiographise, 

 cap. 3, speaking of that extraordinary delight his 

 countrymen took in fishing and making of pools. 

 James Dubravius, that Moravian, in his book de pise. 

 telle th how, travelling by the wayside in Silesia, he 

 found a nobleman, " booted up to the groins," wading 

 himself, pulling the nets, and labouring as much as 

 any fisherman of them all : and when some belike 

 objected to him the baseness of his office, he excused 

 himself, " that if other men might hunt hares, why 

 should not he hunt carps ?" Many gentlemen in like 

 sort with us will wade up to the arm-holes upon such 

 occasions, and voluntarily undertake that to satisfy 

 their pleasure, which a poor man for a good stipend 

 would scarce be hired to undergo. Plutarch, in his 

 book de soler. animal, speaks against all fishing, " as 

 a filthy, base, illiberal employment, having neither 

 wit nor perspicacity in it, nor worth the labour." But 

 he that shall consider the variety of baits for all sea- 

 sons, and pretty devices which our anglers have in- 

 vented, peculiar lines, false flies, several sleights, &c., 

 will say that it deserves like commendation, requires 



