A SHORT DISCOURSE, 



BY WAY OP 



POSTSCRIPT, 



TOUCHING THE LAWS OF ANGLING. 



MY GOOD FRIEND, 



I CANNOT but tender my particular thanks to you, for that you have 

 been pleased, by three editions of your Complete Angler, freely to 

 dispense your de'ar-bought experience to all the lovers of that art ; and 

 have thereby so excellently vindicated the legality thereof, as to divine 

 approbation, that if I should go about to say more in that behalf, it 

 indeed were to light a candle to the sun. But since all pleasures, 

 though neveY so innocent in themselves, lose that stamp, when they 

 are either pursued with inordinate affections, or to the prejudice of 

 another, therefore, as to the former, every man ought to endeavour, 

 through a serious consideration of the vanity of worldly contentments, 

 to moderate his affections thereunto, whereby they may be made of 

 excellent use, as some poisons allayed are in physic ; and, as to the 

 latter, we are to have recourse to the known laws, ignorance whereof 

 excuseth no man, and therefore 1 , by their directions, so to square our 

 actions, that we hurt no man, but keep close to that golden rule, " To 

 do to all men as we would ourselves be done unto." 



Now, concerning the art of angling, we may conclude, sir, that as 

 you have proved it to be of grrat antiquity, so I find it favoured 

 by the laws of this kingdom ; for where provision is made by our 

 statutes, primo Elizabeth, cap. 17, against taking rish by nets that be 

 not of such and such a size there set down, yet those law-makers had 

 so much respect to anglers, as to except them, and leave them at liberty 

 to catch as big as they could, and as little as they would catch. And 

 yet, though this apostolical recreation be simply in itself lawful, yet no 

 man can go upon another man's ground to fish without his licence, but 

 that he is a trespasser. But if a man have a licence to enter into a close 

 or ground for such a space of time, there, though he practise angling all 

 that time, he is not a trespasser, because his fishing is no abuse of hi 



* This Discourse was first published with, and was printed at the end 

 of, the third edition of Walton's book : but, as the subject matter of it 

 relates as well to Cotton's part as the other, it was thought proper t 

 transpose it. 



