THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 63 



that God hath been pleased to allow those whom he himself hath 

 appointed to write his holy will in Holy Writ, yet to express his 

 will in such metaphors as their former affections or practice had 

 inclined them to. And he brings Solomon for an example, who, 

 before his conversion, was remarkably carnally amorous ; and 

 after, by God's appointment, wrote that spiritual dialogue, or 

 holy amorous love-song, the Canticles, betwixt God and his 

 church, in which he says, " his beloved had eyes like the fish 

 pools of Heshbon." 



And if this hold in reason, as I see none to the contrary, then 

 it may be probably concluded, that Moses (who, I told you 

 before, writ the book of Job) and the prophet Amos, who was 

 a shepherd, were both anglers ; for you shall, in all the Old 

 Testament, find fish-hooks, I think, but twice mentioned, 

 namely, by meek Moses, the friend of God, and by the humble 

 prophet Amos.* 



Concerning which last, namely the prophet Amos, I shall 

 make but this observation, that he that shall read the humble, 

 lowly, plain style of that prophet, and compare it with the high, 

 glorious, eloquent style of the prophet Isaiah, (though they be 

 both equally true,) may easily believe Amos to be, not only a 

 shepherd, but a good-natured plain fisherman ; which I do the 

 rather believe, by comparing the affectionate, loving, lowly, 

 humble Epistles of Saint Peter, Saint James, and Saint John, 

 whom we know were all fishers, with the glorious language and 

 high metaphors of Saint Paul, who we may believe was not. 



And for the lawfulness of fishing, it may very well be main- 

 tained by our Saviour's bidding St Peter cast his hook into the 

 water and catch a fish, for money to pay tribute to Caesar. 



And let me tell you, that angling is of high esteem, and of 

 much use in other nations. He that reads the Voyages of 

 Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, f shall find that there he declares to 

 have found a king and several priests a-fishing. 



And he that reads Plutarch shall find, that angling was not 



* Walton was a good Scripturist, and therefore can hardly be supposed 

 to have been ignorant of the passage in Isaiah, chap. xix. 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 bis 



purpose ; hut in the translation of the above prophet by the learned Bishop 

 Lowth, 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 on 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 aad are glad." 

 Habakkuk, chap. i. ver. 15. 

 f A traveller whose veracity is much questioned. 



