84 LITERATURE OF SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 



thus furnished, you will easily learn from thence how to put Rings 

 to all your other Rods. Through these Rings your Line must 

 run, which will be kept in a due Posture, and you will find great 

 Benefit thereby. You must also have a Winch or Wheel affixed 

 to your Rod, about a Foot above the End, that you may give 

 Liberty to the Fish, which, if large, will be apt to run a great way 

 before it may be proper to check him, or before he will voluntarily 

 return." 



The volume also contained "short plain instructions, 

 whereby the most ignorant beginner may in a little time 

 become a perfect artist in angling for Salmon." The "little 

 time " even now, with all modern appliances, often takes a 

 " lifetime." 



The British Angler, by Williamson, in 1740, is a mode- 

 rately good manual as times went, and, like most others, 

 dealt largely with " pastes." It is a curious fact that the 

 great majority of angling authors, who devote a consider- 

 able space to this department of fraudful baits seldom 

 recommend them personally. Richard Brooks, M.D., is 

 another of the many appropriators of other men's labours, 

 suggesting that Sic vos 7ion vobis might be an appropriate 

 motto for many a book on angling. His Art of Angling, 

 in 1740, assumed the form of a dictionary. Richard and 

 his son Charles Bowlker were famous anglers at Ludlow, 

 and authors too, their Art of Angling, improved in all its 

 parts, especially fly fishing, being really instructive. There 

 seems to be some confusion in reference to their joint and 

 separate authorship. The first edition appeared about 1758, 

 and after that six other editions before the death of the son 

 Charles Bowlker in 1779. Since then there have been six 

 more editions, the last dating as late as 1839. "The vora- 

 city of the Pike " is a favourite ichthyological topic. 

 Bowlker the younger has a story about it : — 



" My father catched a Pike in Barn-Meer (a large standing 



