THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 41 



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 of him his lines, hooks, and other tack- 

 ling lying in a round ; and on his other hand are his angle- 

 rods of several sorts: and by them this is written, " That he 

 died 13 Feb. 1601, being aged 9o years, 44 of which he had 

 been Dean of St. Paul's Church ; and that his age had neither 

 impaired his hearing, nor dimmed his eyes, nor weakened his 

 memory, nor made any of the faculties of his mind weak or 

 useless." 'Tis said, that angling and temperance* were great 

 causes of these blessings, and I wish the like to all that 

 imitate him, and love the memory of so good a man. 



My next and last example, shall be that under- valuer of 

 money, the late provost of Eton College, Sir Henry Wottont 

 a man with whom I have often fished and conversed, a man 

 whose foreign employments in the service of this nation, and 

 whose experience, learning, wit, and cheerfulness, made his 

 company to be esteemed one of the delights of mankind : this 

 man, whose very approbation of angling were sufficient to 

 convince any modest censurer of it, this man was also a most 

 clear lover, and a frequent practiser of the art of angling ; of \ 

 which he would say, " 'Twas an employment for his idle time, 

 which was then not idly spent :" for angling was, "after tedious 

 study, a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of 

 sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, 

 a procurer of contented ness :" and " that it begat habits of 

 peace and patience in those that professed and practised it." 

 Indeed, my friend, you will find angling to be like the virtue 

 of humility, which has a calmness of spirit, and a world of 



* It would appear, that though reputed temperate, lie was by no means a 

 teetotaller ; for Sir J. Hawkins says, " that Fuller, in his ' Worthies,' Lanca- 

 shire, p. 115, has thought it worth recording of this pious and learned divine, 

 and that in language so very quaint as to be but just intelligible, that he was 

 accustomed to fish in the Thames ; and having one clay left his bottle of ale in 

 the grass, on the bank of the river, he found it some days after, no bottle, but a 

 gun, such the sound at the opening thereof. And hence, with what degree of 

 sagacity, let the reader determine, lie seems to derive the original of bottled ale 

 in England." 



t See his Life by Walton, in First Part of " Universal Library," section 

 " Biography," published by Messrs. Ingram, Cooke,and Co., 227, Strand, 1853. 



