116 FOURTEENTH TO THE* 



His daintiness'to keep (each curious palate's proof) 

 From his vile ravenous^foe ;~"next him I name the ruff, 

 His very near ally, and both for scale and fin, 

 In taste, and for his bait (indeed) his next of kin. 

 The pretty slender dare, of many called the dace, 

 Within my liquid glass, when Phoebus looks his face, 

 Oft swiftly, as he swims, his silver belly shows, 

 But with such nimble flight, that ere you can disclose 

 His shape, out of your sight like lightning he is shot. 

 The trout by nature mark'd with many a crimson spot, 

 As though the curious were in him above the rest, 

 And of fresh- water fish, did unto him the best. 



# # # # 



The lusty salmon, then, from Neptune's wat'ry realm, 

 Who for their numerous stores, stemming my tideful stream, 

 Then being in his kind, in me his pleasure takes 

 (For whom the fisher then all other game forsakes), 

 Which bending of himself to the fashion of a ring, 

 Above the forced wears himself doth nimbly fling.'* 



We now come to a well-defined and prominent land- 

 mark in angling literature, namely, the appearance of 

 Denny's or Devor's work. It was published in 1613, 

 under the title of The Secrets of Angling, teaching the 

 choicest Tooles, Baytes, and Seasons for the taking of any 

 Fish in Pond or Rivers, practised and familiarly opened in 

 these BooJces, by J. D. Devor was a" man of deep 

 thought, and, in a certain point of view, a man of a 

 truly contemplative genius. He looked upon nature with 

 the eye of a philosopher, and with the feelings and senti- 



