BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. iii 



blessed to such an end ; and I pray that a Hke blessing 

 may go with your reading. 



My first task shall be to give you some knowledge of 

 books upon Angling, or rather fishing, before Walton. I 

 say, rather books on fishing ; for an angler, kind reader, is 

 not ^ fisher man, who plies his calling for a livelihood, care- 

 less in what way he gets his scaly rewards. The name comes 

 from angle or hook, for the true angler touches no net, but 

 that with which he lands the heavy struggler hung on his 

 tiny hair. He scorns to entrap by weir, or fyke, or wick- 

 er-pot, the finny people, when not bent on harm ; but as 

 they watch murderously for the pretty fiy, the helpless 

 minnow, or the half- drowned worm, he comes like a chi- 

 valrous knight to wu'eak upon them the wrong they would 

 do, and slav them as thev think to slav. For everv one he 

 kills a hundred less lives are saved, and the small frv shoot 

 fearlessly along, where once they dared not be seen, when 

 he has drawn the tyrant of the brook from his long kept lair. 

 As Franklin said to the cod in w^hose belly some small cod 

 were found, so says the angler to his prey, "If you eat your 

 kind, I will eat you." If skilful as he ought to be, the an- 

 gler need fix no quivering life on his hook, but with feather 

 and silk and downy dubbing, he makes a bait far more win- 

 ning, that drops upon the curling water, or plays among the 

 whirlpools, as though it were born for the frolic. When a 

 trout chooses to prey upon what he thinks is weaker than 

 himself, the angler ought not to be blamed for it. Neither 

 does he love the sea for his pastime, nor to sit in a boat, 

 or on a rock, or a quay, watching his cork for a nibble 

 (forgive us, shades of Jo. Dennys and Iz. Walton, but, 

 surely, we pigmies on your giant shoulders may see further 

 than you !). His choice is the swift river, the rock-broken 

 stream ; and he walks hopefully on from one jutting cliff 

 to another, making his fiy fall lightly as a drop of snow on 

 each turn of the wave, or under the out-eaten turf, or over 

 the deep, dark pool. You have taken from him half his 



