4 HINTS ON ANGLING. 



havoc of the universal deluge, preserved the knowledge 

 of these arts for the immediate descendants of Noah. 

 These dim traditions for which old Izaak has been un- 

 deservedly sneered at by one of his commentators may 

 or may not be the mere dreams of old enthusiasm ; 

 but there can be little doubt, that fishing, like hunting, 

 must necessarily have been practised at a very early 

 period for the purposes of mere animal subsistence, before 

 the other arts of life could possibly have been called into 

 existence. Some have supposed that all these matters, 

 like the knowledge of God, were revelations to the first 

 man ; and truly there seems to be no insurmountable 

 difficulty in the way of adopting this solution. The arts 

 of fishing, hunting, and even mining, with many others, 

 are spoken of in Job and Genesis, not in a formal and 

 stately manner, as if announcing a new or recent dis- 

 covery, but purely as a matter of course, as a mode of 

 illustrating the subject in hand, by a plain allusion to 

 practices familiar to the reader, and perfectly intelligible 

 to every body. Spinning, weaving, mining, coining, 

 working in iron and brass, making spears, swords, hooks, 

 etc., etc., appear to have been as common in the days of 

 Abraham and Job, as at this hour ; and the fourth only 

 in descent from Cain, is called the father of those who are 

 recorded in the fourth chapter of Genesis as being eminent 

 for their excellence in particular arts. The germs, the 

 first faint principles of this species of knowledge, might 

 be communicated to the first man by a special revelation, 

 which would be left to man's own ingenuity and dexterity 

 to expand and improve ; and, indeed, a high degree of 

 excellence, a vast improvement in these matters, seems to 

 have been effected as early as the fifth in descent from 

 Adam. If the harp and the organ, at present the noblest 



