120 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PARf I. 



knowing that God leads us not to heaven by many, 

 nor by hard, questions like an honest Angler, made 

 that good, plain, un perplexed Catechism, which is 

 printed with our good old Service-book*. I say this 

 good man was a dear lover, and constant practiser 

 of Angling, as any age can produce. And his custom 

 was to spend besides his fixed hours of prayer; 

 those hours which, by command of the church were 

 enjoined the clergy, and voluntarily dedicated to 

 devotion by many primitive Christians ; I say, besides 

 those hours this good man was observed to spend 

 a tenth part of his time in Angling ; and also, (for I 

 have conversed with those which have conversed with 



* The question who was the compiler of our church Catechism, must, I 

 fear, be reckoned among the desiderata of our ecclesiastical history. It is 

 certain that Nowel drew up two catechisms, a greater and a less ; the 

 latter in the Title, as it stands in the English translation, expressly direct- 

 ed " to be learned of all youth, next after the little Catechisme appoynted 

 " in the Booke of Common Prayer*" But besides that both were ori- 

 ginally written in Latin, and translated by other hands the lesser, 

 though declared to be an abridgment of the greater, was at least twenty 

 times longer than that in the Common Prayer Book. And wherea* 

 Walton says, that in the reformation of Elizabeth, the then Parliament 

 enjoined Nowel to make a Catechism, tsfc. and that he made that which 

 is printed in our old Service-book ; the catechism in question is to be found 

 in both the Liturgies of Ediv. VI. (the first whereof was set forth in 1549,) 

 and also in his Primer, printed in 1552; and Nowel is not enumerated 

 among the compilers of the Service-book. Further, both the Catechisms of 

 Nowel contain the doctrine of the sacraments; but that in the old Service- 

 took is silent on that head, and so continued, till, upon an objection of 

 the puritans in the conference at Hampton Court, an explanation of the 

 sacraments was drawn up by Dr. John Overall, and printed in the next 

 impression of the Book of Common Prayer. It may further be remarked, 

 that in the conference above-mentioned, the two Catechisms are contra- 

 distinguished, in an expression of Dr. Reynolds; who objected, That 

 the Catechism in the Common Prayer Book was too brief: and that 

 by Dean Nowel, too long for novices to learn by heart. Vide Fuller'* 

 Cb. Hist, book x. page 14. 



So much of Walton's assertion as respects the sanction given to a ca- 

 techism of Nowel's is true : but it was the larger catechism drawn up at 

 the request of secretary Cecil, and other great persons that was so ap- 

 proved, and that not by parliament, but by a convocation held anno 1562, 

 temp. Eliz. Vide Strype's Life of Archbishop Parker, 202. 



From all which particulars it must be inferred, that Walton's assertion, 

 vvith respect to the Cateehism in the Servite-Sook, i. e. the Book of Common 

 Prayer, is a mistake; and although Strype, in his Memorials , Vol. II. page 

 422, concludes a catechism of Nowel's (mentioned in the said book, page 

 368, & in loc. cit.) to be the church Catechism joined, ordinarily , w//l wr 

 Cemmon Prayer, he also must have misunderstood the fact. 



