EPISTLE TO THE READER. 33 



severe, sour complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a compe- 

 tent 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 all seasonable times, yet the whole 

 discourse is, or rather was, a picture of my own disposition, espec : ally 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 observations of the nature and breed- 

 ing, and seasons, and catching of fish, I am not so simple as not to know, 

 that a captious reader may find exceptions against something said of some 

 of these ; and therefore I must entreat him to consider, that experience 

 teaches us to know that several countries alter the time, and I think, 

 almost the manner, of fishes' breedin?, but doubtless of their being in 

 season ; as may appear bv three rivers in Monmouthshire, namely, 

 Severn, Wye, and Usk, where Camden, Brit. f. 633, observes, that in the 

 river Wye salmon are in season from September to April ; and we are 

 certain, that in Thames and Trent, and in most other rivers, they be in 

 season the six hotter months. 



Now for the art of catching fish, that is to say, how to make a man 

 that was none, to be an angler by a book ; he that undertakes it, shall 

 undertake a harder task than Mr Hales, a most valiant and excellent 

 fencer, who, in a printed book called " A Private School of Defence," 

 undertook to teach that art or science, and was laughed at for his labour. 

 Not but that many useful things might be learned by that book ; but he 

 was laughed at because that art was not to be taught by words, but 

 practice : and so must angling. And note also, that in this discourse I 

 do not undertake to say all that is known, or may be said of it, but I 

 undertake to acquaint the reader with many things that are not usually 

 known to every angler; and I shall leave gleanings and observations 

 enough to be made out of the experience of all that love and practise this 

 recreation, to which I shall encourage them. For angling may be said 

 to be so like the mathematics, that it can never be fully learnt; at least 

 not so fully, but that there will still be more new experiments left for the 

 trial of other men that succeed us. 



* These persons arc supposed to have been related to Walton, from the circumstance of a 

 copy, handed down, of his Lives of Donne, Sir H. Wotton, Hooker, and Herbert, wherein U 

 written by the author on the frontispiece, For my Courin Roe. 



C 



