216 MOKALS, MANNERS, ETC. 



CHAPTER XI. 



The Morals, Manners, and Professions of Life, illustrated from 

 the Art of Angling. 



ONE of the striking characteristics of the angling 

 literature of all countries is, the applications which have 

 been made of it, to point out some of the ordinary moral 

 and prudential maxims of human life, and the various 

 occupations of men. We have already noticed how pro- 

 minently this feature was developed in Italy, when the 

 fishing dramas were fashionable in that country, during 

 the middle ages ; and we find the same strain of sentiment 

 in many of the books on angling in the North of Europe, 

 and even among the Scandinavian and Icelandic domestic 

 tales and stories. All these moral deductions and illus- 

 trations of particular pursuits of life, exhibited in angling 

 effusions, both in prose and verse, are grounded upon a 

 very general and obvious analogy. There is a marked 

 resemblance between the art of fishing itself, and the 

 divers modes which men in various stations and ranks of life 

 are obliged to follow to gain the objects they respectively 

 have in view. This strikes the fancy, and inspires the 

 mind to ring the changes on the various points of resem- 

 blance subsisting between the gentle art of fish taking, 

 and the arts of persuasion or coercion, which form such 



