158 ANCIENT ANGLING AUTHORS 



Writing the above Copious and Instructive treatise, 

 which runs as far as 296 pages of very close Letter- 

 press with a frontispiece of a Man in the proper 

 Habit Fishing, the cuts of the Fish are on a single 

 Leaf, and very indifferently Executed. 



Robert Howlett, the author of The Anglers Sure 

 Guide, thus commences his preface : " The Principles 

 and Practice of the ingenious Art of Angling, are 

 known to bear an antient Date ; Amos 4, 2, Hab. 

 I, 15, and are so admirably defined and propagated, 

 especially by that great Practitioner, Master, and 

 Patron of it, Dr Donne, in his Secrets of Angling, 

 that I have seen little more added to his Documents, 

 than some Experiments. And indeed his seems to 

 be the best Foundation of all Superstructures of this 

 Kind : and upon that Basis chiefly have I raised 

 mine ; not intended so much to instruct the Beginner 

 in the Rudiments of this Art, as to improve the 

 Knowledge of the Proficient." A perusal of this 

 work, however, reveals the fact that it was not so much 

 based upon Denny s' Secrets, as upon Chetham's 

 Angler's Vade-Mecuin, and also that Venables, 

 Cotton, and Walton have been extensively drawn 

 upon. 



Apart from the copious extracts from these authors, 

 the book contains a great deal that is original, and 

 must be pronounced by far the most practical and 

 useful manual of its time. 



Very full instructions are given for making a 

 ground-rod, a fly-rod, a "Travelling Rod," and a 



