TO THE READER. 19 



that it might prove so to him, and not read dull and tedi- 

 ously, I have in several places mixed, not any scurrility, 

 but some innocent, harmless mirth, of which, if thou be a 

 severe, sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee 

 to be a competent judge ; for divines say, there are offences 

 given, and offences not given but taken. 



And I am the willinger to justify the pleasant part of it, 

 because though it is known I can be serious at seasonable 

 times, yet the whole Discourse is, or rather was, a picture of 

 my own disposition, especially in such days and times as I 

 have laid aside business, and gone a-fishing with honest Nat 

 and R. Roe ; but they are gone, and with them most of my 

 pleasant hours, even as a shadow that passeth away and 

 returns not. 



And next let me add this, that he that likes not the book 

 should like the excellent picture of the trout, and some of 

 the other fish ; which I may take a liberty to commend, 

 because they concern not myself. 



Next let me tell the reader, that in that which is the 

 more useful part of this Discourse, that is to say, the obser- 

 vations of the nature, and breeding, and seasons, and catch- 

 ing of fish, I am not so simple as not to know that a cap- 

 tious reader may find exceptions against something said of 

 some of these ; and therefore I must entreat him to con- 

 sider, that experience teaches us to know that several 

 countries alter the time, and I think almost the manner of 

 fishes' breeding, but doubtless of their being in season ; as 

 may appear by three rivers in Monmouthshire, namely, 

 Severn, Wye, and Usk, where Camden ("Brit. Fishes," 633) 

 observes, that in the river Wye, salmon are in season from 

 September to April ; and we are certain that in Thames 



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