34 EPISTLE TO THE READER. 



But I think all that love this game may here learn something that may 

 be worth their money, if they be not poor and needy men : and in case 

 they be, I then wish them to forbear to buy it ; for I write not to get 

 money, but for pleasure, and this discourse boasts of no more; for I hate 

 to promise much, and deceive the reader. 



And however it proves to him, yet I am sure I have found a high con- 

 tent in the search and conference of what is here offered to the reader's 

 view and censure : I wish him as much in the perusal of it, and so I 

 might here take my leave ; but will stay a little and tell him, that whereas 

 it is said by many, that in fly-fishing for a trout, the angler must observe 

 his twelve several flies for the twelve months of the year, I say, he that 

 follows that rule shall be as sure to catch fish, and be as wise as he that 

 makes hay by the fair days in an almanack, and no surer ; for those very 

 flies that used to appear about and on the water in one month of the year, 

 may, the following year, come almost a month sooner or later, as the same 

 year proves colder or hotter : and yet, in the following Discourse, I have 

 set down the twelve flies that are in reputation with many anglers ; and 

 they may serve to give him some observations concerning them. And he 

 may note, that there are in Wales, and other countries, peculiar flies, 

 proper to the particular place or country ; and, doubtless, unless a man 

 makes a fly to counterfeit that very fly in that place, he is like to lose his 

 labour, or much of it ; but for the generality, three or four flies, neat and 

 rightly made, and not too big, serve for a trout in most rivers all the 

 summer ; and for winter fly-fishing, is as useful as an almanack out of 

 date. And of these, because as no man is born an artist, so no man is 

 born an angler, I thought fit to give thee this notice. 



When I have told the reader, that in this fifth* impression there are 

 many enlargements, gathered both by my own observation, and the com- 

 munication with friends, I shall stay him no longer than to wish him a 

 rainy evening to read this following discourse ; and that, if he be an honest 

 angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a-fishing. 



I. W. 



* The fifth, as it is the last of the editions published in the author's lifetime, has been care- 

 fully followed in the present publication. Sec the Author's Life. 



