THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART I. 



And let me add this more : he that views the ancient 

 Ecclesiastical Canons, shall find hunting to be forbidden 

 to Churchmen, as being a turbulent, toilsome, perplexing 

 recreation ; and shall find Angling allowed to clergymen, 

 as being a harmless recreation, a recreation that invites 

 them to contemplation and quietness. 



f might here enlarge myself, by telling you what com- 

 mendations our learned Perkins bestows on Angling; and 

 how dear a lover, and great a practiser of it, our learned 

 Dr. Whitaker ' was ; as indeed many others of great learn- 

 ing have been. But I will content myself with two me- 

 morable men, that lived near to our own time, whom I 

 also take to have been ornaments to the art of Angling. 



The first is Dr. Nowel, some time dean of the cathedral 

 church of St. Paul, in London, where his monu- 

 ment stands yet undefaced ;* a man that, in the 



(I) William PerA-in* was a learned divine, and a pious and painful Preacher; 

 Dr. William Whitaker, an able writer in the Romish controversy, and Regius 

 Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. They both flourished at 

 the latter end of the sixteenth century. I remark the extreme caution of our 

 author in this passage ; for he says not of Perkins, as he does of Whitaker, 

 that he was a practiser of, but only that he bestows (in some of his writings we 

 mast conclude) great commendations on angling. Perkins had the misfortune 

 to want the use of his right hand ; as we find intimated in this distich on him ; 

 Dfitera quamtumvitfuerat tibi manca, docendi 



Pollebat mir& derteritatc tamen. 

 Though Nature hath thee of thy right hand bereft, 

 Right well thou writest with thy hand that's left. 

 And therefore can hardly he supposed capable of even baiting his hook. 



The Fact retpectiug Wbitaker is thus attested by Dr. Fuller, in his Holy 

 State, book iii. chap. IS. " Fishing with an angle is to some rather a torture 

 than a pleasure, to stand an hour as mute as the fish they mean to take ; yet 

 herewithal Dr. Whitaker was much delighted." 



To these examples of divines, lover* of Angling, I here add (1784) that of Dr. 

 Leigh, the present Master of Baliol College, Oxford, who, though turned of 

 ninety, makes it the recreation of his vacant hours. 



(2) Dr. Alexander Nowel, a learned divine, and a famous preacher in the 

 reign of King Edw. VI. ; upon whose death he, with many other Protestants, 

 fled to Germany, where he lived many years. In 156l he was made dean of 

 St. Paul's; and in ir}01 died. The monument mentioned in the text was un- 

 doubtedly consumed, with the church, in the fire of London; but the inscrip- 

 tion thereon is preserved in Stow's Survey, edit. 1633, page 3(te. See Athen. 

 Oron. 313. An engraving of the monument itself is in Dugdale's History of 

 St. PavPs Cathedral 



