THE WORD ANGLING. 



fishing with hooks. c( The fishers," says the prophet 

 Isaiah, "shall mourn, and they that cast angle upon 

 the brooks shall lament,," or, as Bishop Lowth trans- 

 lates it, " those that cast the hook into the river;'* 

 Fuller in his ^ Holy State " speaks of "fishing with 

 an angle;" and Dame Juliana Berners, prioress of 

 Sopwell, entitles a curious portion of her work, printed 

 in 1496, by Wynkyn de Worde, "The Treatyse of 

 Fysshynge wyth an Angle." About a hundred years 

 afterwards, another work was published, entitled "A 

 Booke of fishing with a hooke and line," which is 

 precisely what has since been commonly denominated 

 ' ' Angling." 



The two principal branches of this art are Fly-fish- 

 ing and Trolling, upon which numerous works have 

 been written: but very few of these are original, or 

 dictated by experience, by far the greater number 

 being mere compilations. The most celebrated of all 

 these works, is entitled the " Complete Angler, or 

 Contemplative Man's Recreation," by Izaak Walton; 

 but though this is really a very good practical work, 

 containing the result of both the author's experience 

 and that of his friends, its popularity has not arisen 

 from this, but, as has been justly said, "from the beau- 

 tiful accessories of pure style, poetical sentiment, and 

 picturesque illustration, such as must ever delight the 

 general reader," though he be no angler, while the 

 latter will not always readily meet with the information 

 he may want for immediate practice. It is a book 

 indeed, which all men, and, 1 may add, all women too, 

 must be delighted to read, altogether independent of 



