The Compleat ^Angler 



promise you my patience and diligent attention shall not be wanting. 

 And if you shall make that to appear which you have undertaken 

 first that it is an art, and an art worth the learning, I shall 

 beg that I may attend you a day or two a-fishing, and that I 

 may become your scholar and be instructed in the art itself which 

 you so much magnify. 



Pise. O sir, doubt not that angling is an art. Is it not an 

 art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly ? a trout ! that is 

 more sharp-sighted than any hawk you have named, and more 

 watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold ; 

 and yet I doubt not to catch a brace or two to-morrow for a friend's 

 breakfast : doubt not, therefore, sir, but that angling is an art, and 

 an art worth your learning. The question is rather, whether you 

 be capable of learning it ? for angling is somewhat like poetry, 

 men are to be born so : I mean, with inclinations to it, though 

 both may be heightened by discourse and practice : but he that 

 hopes to be a good angler, must not only bring an inquiring, 

 searching, observing wit, but he must bring a large measure of 

 hope and patience, and a love and propensity to the art itself ; 

 but having once got and practised it, then doubt not but angling 

 will prove to be so pleasant, that it will prove to be like virtue, 

 a reward to itself. 



VEN. Sir, I am now become so full of expectation, that I long 

 much to have you proceed ; and in the order you propose. 



Pise. Then first, for the antiquity of angling, of which I shall 

 not say much, but only this : some say it is as ancient as 

 Deucalion's flood ; others, that Belus, who was the first inventor 

 of godly and virtuous recreations, was the first inventor of angling ; 

 and some others say (for former times have had their disquisitions 

 about the antiquity of it) that Seth, one of the sons of Adam, taught 

 it to his sons, and that by them it was derived to posterity : others 

 say, that he left it engraven on those pillars which he erected, and 

 trusted to preserve the knowledge of the mathematics, music, and 

 the rest of that precious knowledge and those useful arts which by 

 God's appointment or allowance and his noble industry, were thereby 

 preserved from perishing in Noah's flood. 



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