350 Till LAWS OF ANGLING. 



A SHORT DISCOURSE, by way of POSTCRIPT, touching the LAWS of 



A NO LINO. 1 



Mr GOOD FRIEND, 



I CANNOT but tender my particular thanks to 

 you, for that yon have been pleased, by three editions of 

 your COMPLETE ANGLER, freely to dispense your dear- 

 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 never so inno- 

 cent 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 there- 

 unto, 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, by their direc- 

 tions, 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 great antiquity, so 

 I find it favoured by the laws of this kingdom ; for where 

 provision is made by our Statutes primo Elizab. cap. 17. 

 against taking fish by nets that be not of such and such a 



(1) Thi Ditcourte was first published with, and wu 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 to transpose it. 



