we disclaim any thing that can be fairly con- 

 sidered as a cruel disposition on the part of 

 anglers, we cannot refrain from exalting above 

 all others that division of the art of angling 

 in laud of which this chapter is written. 



"And angling too, that solitary vice, 



Whatever Isaak Walton sings or says: 

 The quaint old cruel coxcomb in his gullet 

 Should have a hook and a small trout to pull it." 



Byron's Don Juan, canto XII. stanza 16. 



Not only do these four verses contain severe and chosen 

 epithets of abuse launched against the common father of 

 anglers, but they convey a strong censure against the art 

 itself the whole art of angling calling it "a solitary 

 vice," that is, a vice of the very worst sort, since it must 

 be founded on self and unparticipated enjoyment. For 

 our parts we have always smiled at the noble poet's indig- 

 nation against the cruelty of anglers, and the more so, 

 since that indignation is expressed in a work, the hero of 

 which is a model of refined cruelty one of those lax, yet 

 interesting young gentlemen, who think less of breaking a 

 woman's heart be she maid, wife, or widow than poor 

 quiet old Isaak would of paining a grasshopper. Angling 

 a "solitary vice!" Gambling, dog-fighting, boxing, in- 

 trigues, both with married and with single, are certainly 

 not " solitary" vices ; but that is the only negative praise 

 that can attach to them ; and he who has been known to 

 indulge in and to patronise them, must have been in ra- 

 ther a maudlin mood when he spun the above verses. 

 Captain Medwin, in his Angler in Wales, who knew Lord 

 Byron, says of the noble poet, that " he was always strain- 

 ing at some paradox to startle with. I believe he never 

 threw a fly in his life, or, except at Newstead, in some 

 dull pond, ever wetted a line, or used any other bait than 

 a worm." There can be but little doubt, that Lord Byron 

 did not mean his censure to apply to fly-fishers ; but, as 

 the text stands, it is directed against anglers in general, 

 and for that reason we have noticed it. In concluding 

 this note we beg to say, that we do not hold Walton wholly 



