BOOK-LEARNING. 151 



book called f A Private School of Defence/ 

 undertook to teach that art or science and got 

 laughed at for his labour; not but that many 

 useful things might be learnt from that book, 

 but he was laughed at because that art was not 

 to be learnt by words but practice and so 

 must angling. Seeing," addeth Izaac, "that as 

 no man is born an artist, so no man is born an 

 angler, I thought fit to give thee this notice." 



There was formerly a prejudice against the 

 seeking in books for angling instructions, as, 

 indeed, there was against book-learning of every 

 kind ; but happily the day is gone to render 

 necessary anything like argument to show the 

 folly of such a prejudice. There is no earthly 

 reason why a book on this subject should not be 

 just as useful to a young angler as other books are 

 to the seeker after other kinds of information; 

 nor why the experience of anglers should not also 

 be preserved and communicated by means of the 

 printer's art, as well as that of others whose 

 writings " the schoolmaster" has prepared most 

 people, now-a-day, to comprehend and profit by. 



We take it for granted, therefore, that while it 



is quite possible to write a good and an instructive 



book on this fascinating art, the precepts of that 



art will be comparatively valueless if not prac- 



L 4 



