LIFE OF WALTON. 



cellent rules, and valuable discoveries ; and it may, 

 with truth, be said, that few have ever perused them, 

 but have, unless it was their own fault, found them* 

 selves not only better anglers, but better men. 



A book which had been published by Col. Robert 

 Venables, some years before*, called the Experienced 

 Angler, or Angling improved, which has its merit, 

 was also now reprinted ; and the booksellers prefixed 

 to it a general title of the Universal Angler, under 

 which they sometimes sold the three, bound together : 

 but the book being written in a manner very different 

 from that of the Complete Angler, it was not thought 

 proper to let it accompany the present edition ; how- 

 ever, some use has been made of it in the notes. It 

 has a preface signed J. W. undoubtedly of AValton's 

 writing. 



And here it may not be amiss to remark, that be- 

 tween the two parts of the Complete Angler there is 

 an obvious difference; the Latter [Part] though it 

 abounds in descriptions of a wild and romantic country, 

 and exemplifies the intercourses of hospitable urbanity 

 is of a didactic form, and contains in it more of in- 

 struction in the art it professes to teach, than of moral 

 reflection : whereas the former, besides the pastoral 

 simplicity that distinguishes it, is replete with sen- 

 timents that edify, and precepts that recommend, in 

 the most persuasive manner, the practice of religion, 

 and the exercise of patience, humility, contentedness, 

 and other moral virtues. In this view of it, the book 

 might be said to be the only one of the kind, but that 

 J find somewhat like an imitation of it extant in a 

 tract entitled Angling improved to spiritual uses, part 

 of an Octavo volume written by that eminent person 

 the Hon. Robert Boyle, an angler, as himself confesses, 

 and published in 1665, with this title, " Occasional 

 " Reflections upon several subjects; whereto is pre- 

 " mised a Discourse about such kind of thoughts." 



Great names are entitled to great respect. The cha- 

 racter of Mr. Boyle, as a devout Christian and deep 



* In 1662. 



