122 LITERATURE OF SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 



" The jealous trout, that low did lie, 

 Rose at a well-dissembled fly ; 

 There stood my Friend, with patient skill, 

 Attending of his trembling quill." 



The " Friend " was probably Walton. 



Though hardly to be called poetry, the following lines of 

 " Napour Notpole," written in old Barker's Delights, are 

 very truthful up to the present hour : — 



" Cards, dice, and tables pick thy purse. 

 Drinking and drabbing being a curse ; 

 Hawking and hunting spend thy chink. 

 Bowling and shooting end in drink. 

 The fighting-cock and the horse-race 

 Will sink a good estate a-pace ; 

 Angling doth bodyes exercise, 

 And maketh soules holy and wise 

 By blessed thoughts and meditation. 

 This, this the angler's recreation ; 

 Health, profit, pleasure, mix't together, 

 All sports to this not worth a feather." 



Waller, whose poem " On a Girdle " will live as long as 

 the English language, has among his Meditations one " On 

 Fish," and as he has several allusions to angling in his 

 writings, he may be claimed for our purpose. We find 

 there were lady-anglers in his day, as he sings of the Court 

 beauties of Charles II.'s reign who angled — perhaps in 

 more ways than one — in St. James's Park : — 



" Beneath, a shole of silver fishes glides, 

 And plays about the gilded barges sides ; 

 The ladies angling in the chrystal lake 

 Feast on the waters with the prey they take ; 

 At once victorious, with their lines and eyes, 

 They make the fishes and the men their prize." 



A propos of lady-anglers, who now number in their 

 increasing ranks the Marchioness of Lome (Princess 

 Louise), and have been doing w.ondrous execution among 



