22 HINTS ON ANGLING. 



witticisms, which the heaviest blockhead feels he has a sort 

 of patent right to indulge in at the angler's expense. 



Such opinions, however, were not always current; and 

 most probably the time is not far distant, when the present 

 frothy, bubbly, state of things shall have been blown 

 away by an inevitable catastrophe that a more whole- 

 some and healthy mode of thinking will pervade the 

 public mind, and cultivate among our youth, a taste for 

 gentler pursuits, more favourable to mental improvement, 

 and intellectual development. They will thus learn, that 

 if, in the vigorous amusements of hunting, cricketing, 

 boating, etc., etc., they may invigorate their bodies, and 

 nerve their limbs, and practise their courage for the 

 hour of their country's glory, or the season of her neces- 

 sity, they may also, in addition to these corporeal 

 advantages, derive health, recreation, elevation of senti- 

 ment, and intellectual discipline and culture, by the side 

 of murmuring brooks, or gentle rivers, casting the once 

 despised line across the rippling stream, and feeling the 

 full excitement of the sport, as the strong trout plunges 

 short, or effectually hooks himself in his eager risings. 



To shew the estimation in which the art of angling 

 was held in bye-gone days, it may suffice to notice an 

 ecclesiastical canon on the subject, enunciated in times 

 when the church was disciplined by a sufficiently strict 

 rule, though not perhaps in accordance with modern acts 

 of Parliament. The canon is alluded to by Walton ; but 

 the reason assigned by the commentary for the permission 

 given to spiritual persons to enjoy the pleasures of 

 angling, is worth transcribing. The canon * states, that 

 hunters have generally been sinners, citing the case of 

 Esau; and that fishermen, in the scriptures, have com- 

 monly been deemed holy. The commentary runs thus, 

 * Decretals, Lyons, 1671. 



