354 THE LAWS OF ANGLING. 



nets and oars ; and judgment was thereupon given for the 

 plaintiff. 



Doubtless our fore-fathers well considered, that man 

 to man was a wolf/ and therefore made good laws to keep 

 us from devouring one another; and amongst the rest a 

 very good Statute was made in the three-and-fortieth 

 year of Queen Elizabeth, whereby it is provided, that in 

 personal actions in the courts at Westminster (being not 

 for land or battery), when it shall appear to the judges 

 (and be so by them signified) that the debt or damages 

 to be recovered amount not to the sura of forty shillings 

 or above, the said judges shall award to the plaintiff no 

 more costs than damages, but less, at their discretion. 



And now, with my acknowledgment of the advantage 

 I have had both by your friendship and your BOOK, I wish 

 nothing may ever be that looks like an alteration in the 

 first, nor any thing in the last, unless, by reason of the 

 useful pleasure of it, you had called it the ARCADIA of 

 ANGLING, for it deserves that title; and I would deserve 

 the continuance of your friendship. 



Co*tm*at*m gg the Ducottne by Sir JOHN HAWKINS. 



Since the writing the foregoing discourse, the laws of 

 this country relative to Fish and Fishing have undergone 

 such alterations as would alone justify an addition to it : 

 but as it has, of late, been objected to all laws that assign 

 an exclusive right in any of the creatures of God to parti- 

 cular ranks or orders of men, that they savour of barba- 

 rism, and are calculated to serve the purposes of tyranny 

 and ambition, it wa* thought necessary to trace the matter 

 farther back, and shew from whence laws of this kind 

 derive their force. And though it is not imagined that 



(1) A Melancholy truth so oofrenallj acknowledged at to have given occasion 

 i e the provtrb, Home komM lujnu. Vide Eratmi Adagia. 



