jfatbers of Hn0lfn0 27 



Theoph. This was to the point, I confess ; pray 

 go on. 



Arn. In his book intituled the Compleat Angler, 

 you may read there of various and diversified colours, 

 as also the forms and proportions of flics. Where, 

 poor man, he perplexes himself to rally and scrape 

 together such a parcel of fragments, which he fancies 

 arguments convincing enough to instruct the adult 

 and minority of youth, into the slender margin of 

 his uncultivated art, never made practicable by himself 

 I'm convinc'd. Where note, the true character of an 

 industrious angler more deservedly falls upon Merril 

 and Faulkner, or rather upon Isaac Owldham, a man 

 that fished salmon with but three hairs to a hook, 

 whose collections and experiments were lost with 

 himself. 



Theoph. That was pity." 



That Walton, whose simple mind was open to receive 

 the most childish superstitions, deserved that castiga- 

 tion I think no candid person will deny after reading 

 the following passage from "The Compleat Angler." 

 Piscator is discoursing of the pike, a subject of which 

 he was as lamentably and ludicrously ignorant as of 

 the salmon, and he says gravely : " It is not to be 

 doubted but that they are bred, some by generation 

 and some not, as, namely, of a weed called pickerel 

 weed, unless learned Gesner be much mistaken, for 

 he says, this weed and other glutinous matter, with 

 the help of the sun's heat, in some particular months, 

 and some ponds apted for it by nature, do become 

 pikes. But doubtless divers pikes are bred after this 



