The Compleat ^Angler 



to clergymen, as being a harmless recreation, a recreation that invites 

 them to contemplation and quietness. 



I might here enlarge myself by telling you what commendations 

 our learned Perkins bestows on angling : and how dear a lover, and 

 great a practiser of it our learned Doctor Whittaker was, as indeed 

 many others of great learning have been. But I will content myself 

 with two memorable men, that lived near to our own time, whom I 

 also take to have been ornaments to the art of angling. 



The first is Doctor Nowel, some time Dean of the Cathedral Church 

 of St. Paul's in London, where his monument stands yet undefaced : 

 a man that in the reformation of Queen Elizabeth (not that of Henry 

 VIII.) was so noted for his meek spirit, deep learning, prudence, and 

 piety, that the then Parliament and Convocation both, chose, enjoined, 

 and trusted him to be the man to make a catechism for public use, 

 such a one as should stand as a rule for faith and manners to their 

 posterity. And the good old man (though he was very learned, yet 

 knowing that God leads us not to Heaven by many nor by hard 

 questions), like an honest angler, made that good, plain, unperplexed 

 catechism, which is printed with our good old service-book. I say, 

 this good old 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, beside 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 

 him) to bestow a tenth part of his revenue, and usually all his fish, 

 amongst the poor that inhabited near to those rivers in which it was 

 caught ; saying often, " that charity gave life to religion : *' and, at 

 his return to his house, would praise God he had spent that day free 

 from worldly trouble ; both harmlessly, and in recreation that became 

 a churchman. And this good man was well content, if not desirous, 

 that posterity should know he was an angler ; as may appear by his 

 picture, now to be seen, and carefully kept, in Brazen-nose College 

 (to which he was a liberal benefactor). In which picture he was 

 drawn, leaning on a desk, with his Bible before him, and on one hand 



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