PRAISE OF ANGLING. 3 



and those who have no acquaintance or sympathy 

 with rural recreations say what they will to the 

 contrary. It delights, by bringing its votaries 

 into direct and intimate communication with 

 nature in her loveliest guise ; it instructs, by 

 compelling them, if they would pursue the art 

 successfully, to acquire a knowledge of some of 

 her most interesting productions ; it soothes and 

 elevates, by the habits of " calm, quiet, and in- 

 nocent" contemplation which it induces; it inte- 

 rests, by the triumph which skill and perseverance 

 enable them to effect in the capture of shy and 

 cunning creatures by elegant and scientific means 

 by art and reason over instinct ; and it in- 

 vigorates, mentally and physically, by the active 

 exercise which it demands, and by the agreeable 

 excitement which it produces. 



" That undervaluer of money, Sir Henry 

 Wotton, the late provost of Eton College a 

 man," says Walton, " whose very approbation of 

 the art ought to be enough to convince any 

 modest censurer of it," was wont to say of angling 

 that it was " an employment for his idle time, 

 which was not then idly spent ; for it was, after 

 tedious study, a rest to his mind, a cheerer of 

 his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of 

 unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a pro- 

 B 2 



