38 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



I shall not say much, but only this ; some say it is as 

 ancient as Deucalion's flood : others, that Belus, who was 

 the first inventor of godly and virtuous recreations, was 

 the first inventor of angling ; and some others say, for 

 former times have had their disquisitions about the 

 antiquity of it, that Seth, one of the sons of Adam, taught 

 it to his sons, and that by them it was derived to posterity : 

 others say, that he left it engraven on those pillars which 

 he erected, and trusted to preserve the knowledge of the 

 mathematics, music, and the rest of that precious know- 

 ledge and those useful arts which by God's appointment 

 or allowance and his noble industry, were thereby pre- 

 served from perishing in Noah's flood.* 



These, Sir, have been the opinions of several men that 

 have possibly endeavoured to make angling more ancient 

 than is needful, or may well be warranted ; but for my 

 part, I shall content myself in telling you, that angling 

 is much more ancient than the Incarnation of our Saviour ; 

 for in the prophet Amos f mention is made of fish-hooks ; 

 and in the book of Job, which was long before the days of 

 Amos, for that book is said to be writ by Moses, mention 



* Those that say this are very safe in their assertion, for there 

 is no remaining evidence to contradict it. It may, however, be 

 observed, that the same has been said in favour of many other arts ; 

 and, if I mistake not, of the hermetic science and freemasonry : 

 concerning the former whereof Ashmole has the confidence to affirm, 

 that by means of it Adam and the fathers before the flood, as also 

 Abraham, Moses, and Solomon, wrought many wonders. See the 

 Prolegomena to his Theairum Chcmicum Britannicum, in which there 

 is more such nonsense and absurdity. H. 



t In the book of Amos, iv. 2, we find " The Lord God hath 

 sworn by His holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that 

 He will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fish- 

 hooks." In Jeremiah xvi. 16 are these words : " Behold, I will 

 send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them ; 

 and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them 

 from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of 

 the rocks." Finally, in Habakkuk i. 15 it is written : " They take 

 up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and 

 gather them in their drag," etc. Angling and hunting are unques- 

 tionably the most primitive of field sports. Necessity as well as 

 pleasure led to the pursuit of bird, beast, and fish. E. 



