Tlbe jfatbers of Hnolina 25 



much as anything to court them ashore and sweeten 

 our recreation. But I speak more peculiarly to in- 

 genious artists, not to those flcgmitick fellows, indigent 

 of art ; such only I allot an accidental fate." 



But the passage in which he most severely flagellates 

 Izaak, to the horror and indignation of all idolatrous 

 Waltonians, is the following : 



"Am. That was my intention, had you never 

 mentioned it ; but were it to another, I should rather 

 refer him to one of our modern assertors. For indeed 

 the frequent exercise of fly fishing, though painful, yet 

 it's delightful, more especially when managed by the 

 methods of art, and the practical rules and mediums 

 of artists. But the ground bait was of old the general 

 practice, and beyond dispute brought considerable 

 profit ; which happened in those days when the curiosity 

 of fly fishing was intricate and impracticable. How- 

 ever Isaak Walton (late author of the Compleat 

 Angler) has imposed upon the world this monthly 

 novelty, which he understood not himself; but stuffs 

 his book with morals from Dubravius and others, not 

 giving us one precedent of his own practical experi- 

 ments, except otherwise where he prefers the trencher 

 before the troling-rod ; who lays the stress of his 

 arguments upon other men's observations, wherewith 

 he stuffs his indigested octavo ; so brings himself under 

 the angler's censure, and the common calamity of a 

 plagiary, to be pitied (poor man) for his loss of time 

 in scribbling and transcribing other men's notions. 

 These are the drones that rob the hive, yet flatter 

 the bees they bring them honey. 



