INTRODUCTION. 7 



enthusiast, who loves to wander in the free air and wide 

 champaign, and relies for success solely on his own patience, 

 dexterity, and skill. 



To gratify this peculiar taste, so universal, as to be 

 almost natural, books on fishing, on the habits and haunts 

 of fish, and on the most approved methods of catching 

 them, have of late years issued from the press as " thick 

 as leaves in Vallombrosa ;" and the avidity with which 

 they are bought up, and their contents devoured with de- 

 light by both old and young, incontestably proves that the 

 gentle art has lost none of its attractions, even amongst 

 the false maxims and affected superiority of modern 

 civilisation. 



We have perused most of the books on Angling, which 

 have teemed from the press within the last five and thirty 

 years ; but without passing any judgment on their general 

 or particular merits, we confess we have still an unalloyed 

 fondness for dear old Izaak Walton. Taking all things into 

 consideration, he is the best author on the subject ; and 

 he has certainly been the most fortunate in point ef reput- 

 ation and fame. We like his quaint, local and personal 

 style. It accords most beautifully with the subject-matter 

 of his work. We do not know how to account satisfac- 

 torily for the fact ; but we always feel a peculiar pleasure 

 in reading books written upon the plan of Walton. The 

 mind seems to delight in roaming about from one incident 

 to another ; a habit which appears to produce the same 

 kind of pleasure as we derive from the well-regulated 

 conversation of a few intelligent friends, whose memories 

 are well stored with amusing and instructive anecdote. 



There is, besides this, another source of pleasure in 

 perusing literary works like old Izaak's. They become as 

 it were, dramatic by age. It is one of the privileges of 



