AN ANGLER, A HUNTER, AND A FALCONER 



men, as being a harmless recreation, a recreation, that invites 

 them to contemplation and quietness. 



I might here enlarge myself by telling you, what com- 

 mendations our learned Perkins bestows on Angling : and how 

 dear a lover, and great a practiser of it our learned Doctor 

 Whitaker 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, sometimes 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 vm., 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 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 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 a recreation that became a Church- 

 man. 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 



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