86 CRUELTY TO LIVE BAIT. 



Now for to take this kind of fish withall, 

 It shall be needful to have still in store 



Some living baits, as blicks, and roches small, 

 Gudgeon, or loch, not taken long before, 



Or yellow frogs, that in the waters crawle, 

 But all alive they must be evermore. 



But as for baits that dead and dull do lie, 



They .least esteem, and set but little by. 



That Walton copied implicitly from others, 

 without practising what he recommends, is evi- 

 dent, as, if he were a fisherman at all, he was 

 what is called in modern times a ground-bait 

 angler. Sir Henry Wotton, while he was him- 

 self employed in fly-fishing, apostrophized his 

 companion thus : 



There stood my friend with patient skill, 

 Attending to his trembling quill. 



Independently of this, however, we may refer to 

 the whole tenor of Walton's life and writings as 

 sufficient to contradict the charge of cruelty, which 

 has been brought against him. The age in which 

 he lived was not one of very great refinement, and 

 the custom of fishing for pike with a live frog was 

 probably a very prevalent one at the time he wrote 

 his " Complete Angler/' The simplicity and in- 

 nocence of our " good father's " character are, 

 however, the best proofs, which can be brought for- 

 ward of the kindness of his heart, and the tender- 

 ness of his disposition. 



