34 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART I. 



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 con- 

 trary, 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. 1 



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 com- 

 pare it with the high, glorious, eloquent style of the pro- 

 phet 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 St. Peter, St. James, and St. John, 

 whom we know were all fishers, with the glorious lan- 

 guage and high metaphors of St. Paul, who we may 

 believe was not. 



And for the lawfulness of fishing : it may very well be 



(1) 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 water* sh*ll languish." Which words as they do but 

 imply the use of fish-hooks, he might think not directly to his purpose; but in 

 the translation of the above prophet by the learned Bishop Louth, who himself 

 assorts 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, 

 Aad those that spread nets on the face of the waters shall languish." 



The following passage Walton srems likewise to have forgotten when he 

 wrote die above, unless the reason before assigned induced him to reject it : 

 They take op all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and 

 gather then to their drag, therefore they rejoice and are glad." llabukkuk, 

 rhap. i. v. 15. 



