H6 ANCIENT ANGLING AUTHORS 



work, entitled Three Dialogues on the Amusements of 

 Clergymen^ are not equally indulgent to the sport of 

 angling. 



These dialogues were found in manuscript, when 

 Dr Josiah Frampton's library was sold in 1729 or 

 1730. They were written in 1686, but were not then 

 published by the author, for fear of giving offence. 

 They were printed in 1796, when all fear of hurting 

 the feelings of anyone mentioned in them had 

 passed away. 1 



The author at the time these dialogues were 

 written was, according to his own account, "a very 

 incorrect young man. I had," he says, " entered into 

 the ministry with little attention to the duties I had 

 taken on me to discharge. I loved society, and was 

 fond of country diversions : and though I was fond 

 also of my book, I would at any time have left it for 

 a day's diversion with the hounds a ramble in the 

 woods with my gun or a game of cards, and a 

 dance in the evening." It happened that while Mr 

 Frampton with these frivolous inclinations held the 

 curacy of Wroxall, in Warwickshire, Dr Edward 



1 From a letter dated nth April 1797, and signed "Will. 

 Gilpin," it appears that the publication of these letters was due 

 to William Gilpin, Prebendary of Salisbury, and the author of 

 Forest Scenery. On the strength of this letter, the authors of 

 the Bibliotheca Piscatoria state that these dialogues were 

 written by William Gilpin under the pseudonym of Josiah 

 Frampton. This, however, is manifestly impossible, as a 

 comparison of the dates, on which the dialogues and the 

 letter were respectively written, will show. 



