78 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



otherwise separated from its mate, the other does not long survive ; 

 and it is chiefly for this reason that the stealing of swans is by our 

 law made penal ; so as that " he who stealeth a swan, in an open 

 and common river, lawfully marked, the same swan shall be hung 

 in a house by the beak ; and he who stole it shall, in recompense 

 thereof, give to the owner so much wheat as may cover all the 

 swan, by putting and turning the wheat upon the head of the 

 swan, until the head of the swan be covered with wheat." COPE'S 

 " Reports," Part VII. The case of Swans.- H. 



* Walton was a good Scrip turist, and therefore can hardly have 

 been ignorant of the passage in Isaiah, chap, xix., ver. 8 : "The 

 fishers shall mourn, and all they that cast angle upon the brooks 

 shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall 

 languish." which words, as they do but imply the use of 'fish-hooks, 

 he might think not directly to his purpose ; but in the translation 

 of the above prophet by the learned Bishop Louth, who himself 

 assures me that the word hook is truly rendered, the passage stands 

 thus: 



" And the fishers shall mourn and lament ; 

 All those that cast the hook in the river ; 

 And those that spread nets upon the face of the waters shall 



languish." 



The following passage Walton seems likewise to have forgotten 

 when he wrote the above, unless the reason before assigned induced 

 him to reject it : " They take up all of them with the angle, they 

 catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag ; therefore 

 they rejoice and are glad." Habbakkuk i. 15. H. 



* A traveller whose veracity is much questioned. H. 



* The account given by Plutarch is as follows : " It would be 

 very tedious and trifling to recount all his follies, but his fishing 

 must not be forgot, He went out one day to angle with CleopalM, 



