36 IZAAK WALTON AND HIS FRIENDS 



not consider it proper to talk of some fish " because 

 they make us anglers no sport " ; and he quotes 

 the saying: "I envy nobody but him, and him 

 only, that catches more fish than I do." Yet a 

 recent writer in his edition of The Complete Angler 

 (published by Methuen & Co., 1901), can say he is 

 " not sure if Walton ever deserved the fine name 

 of sportsman in its truer sense ! " 



Walton greatly disliked swearing. A com- 

 panion, he says, that feasts the company with wit 

 and mirth and leaves out the sin (which is usually 

 mixed with them), he is the man. He says, *' good 

 company and good discourse are the very sinues of 

 virtue." With quaint humour he advises anglers to 

 be patient and forbear swearing, lest they be heard 

 and catch no fish, but he assures us that anglers 

 seldom take the name of God into their mouths 

 but it is either to praise Him or pray to Him ; if 

 others use it vainly in the midst of their recrea- 

 tions, so vainly as if they meant to conjure, he tells 

 us it is neither our fault nor our custom ; we pro- 

 test against it.^ He says he loves such mirth as 

 does not make friends ashamed to look upon one 

 another the next morning. Fancy in these days 

 men praying before, and as part of, their recrea- 

 tion ! Yet in "primitive " times they did. 



> Mercurius Hermon, in verses to Richard Franck, writes : — 



" Sir, you have taught the angler that good fashion 

 Not to catch fish with oaths, but contemplation." 



