VINDICATION OF FLY FISHING. 3 



"A quaint old cruel coxcomb." * I must say, 

 a practice of this great fisherman, where he 

 recommends you to pass the hook through the 

 body of a frog with care, as though you loved 

 him, in order to keep him alive longer, cannot 

 but be considered as cruel. 



HAL. I do not justify either the expression 

 or the practice of Walton in this instance; but 

 remember, / fish only with inanimate baits, or 

 imitations of them, and I will not exhume or 

 expose the ashes of the dead, nor vindicate the 

 memory of Walton, at the expense of Byron, 

 who, like Johnson, was no fisherman : but the 

 moral and religious habits of Walton, his sim- 

 plicity of manners, and his well-spent life, ex- 

 onerate him from the charge of cruelty ; and 

 the book of a coxcomb would not have been 

 so great a favourite with most persons of re- 

 fined taste. A noble lady, long distinguished 

 at court for pre-eminent beauty and grace, and 



* From Don Juan, Canto XII. Stanza CVL : 



" And Angling, too, that solitary vice,, 



Whatever Isaac Walton sings or says : 

 The quaint old cruel coxcomb in his gullet 

 Should have a hook and a small trout to pull it." 



B 2 



