EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 109 



an art, which must, in such localities, be stripped of those 

 necessary accessaries to sentiment and feeling the un- 

 dulating landscape, and the rippling and limpid stream. 

 But, strange to say, the Dutch have displayed a genius of 

 their own in reference to fishing. They have been clever 

 and amusing caricaturists of it. There are many finely 

 executed prints, of the early parts of the seventeenth 

 century, which represent the fisherman of Holland in the 

 most grotesque and laughable positions. It must be 

 borne in mind, that this part of Europe has always been, 

 and is yet, famous for its salmon. All the splendid estu- 

 aries which disembogue themselves into the maritime 

 districts of Holland are full of them ; for, even in the 

 days of the Eomans, we find the Moselle " the clear and 

 blue Moselle " whose waters fall into the Ehine, cele- 

 brated for its numerous and delicious salmon. Fishing, 

 therefore, both for this monarch of the streams and less 

 valuable sport, has been commonly practised for several 

 centuries among a large class of the people, both for profit 

 and amusement. Indeed, there is a common proverb in 

 Holland that Amsterdam is built upon the bones of fish. 

 In 1613 we have, in Dutch, the Handbook of Fishing 

 (Amsterdam), in which the art is described, and plates 

 of the several kinds of fish are given. About half a cen- 

 tury after this we have another work, The Msher's Guide, 

 a small treatise, little more than a mere abridgment of the 

 book just mentioned. The earliest caricatures of the 

 angler we have seen bear the date of 1 603. One represents 



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