12 ifcfnss of tbe 1Rot>, raffle, atto (Bun 



humours," and, paraphrasing the passage I have quoted, 

 uses the phrases " still and quiet," " sweete silver 

 streams," and the like pretty words which became the 

 stock-in-trade of angling writers. Whenever Walton 

 grows sentimental he invariably babbles of " sweet silver 

 streams," and " meadow flowers," and the " melody of 

 birds " ; in fact, he simply rings the changes on the 

 phraseology of the author of the a Treatyse on Fysshinge 

 with an Angle " or his paraphraser, old Robert Burton, 

 and thereby betrays a lamentable lack of original 

 expression. 



And now I come to the momentous question : Was 

 Shakespeare an Angler ? Can the brotherhood of the 

 angle claim " the divine William " as one of their craft ? 

 Mr. Justice Madden, in his fascinating book " The Diary 

 of Master William Silence," has proved conclusively that 

 Shakespeare was an expert in the "Arte of Venerie," 

 and wrote of hunting and coursing as none but a 

 keen, practical sportsman could have written. There 

 is hardly any craft or calling whose members have 

 not found proof in Shakespeare's works that the Bard 

 was a brother craftsman. And why not the angler? 

 When the poet in " Much Ado about Nothing " makes 

 Ursula say : 



The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish 

 Cut with her golden oars the silver stream, 

 And greedily devour the treacherous bait : 

 So angle we for Beatrice, 



was he not thinking of days passed with rod and line 

 among the deep pools of the Warwickshire Avon ? 



