PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 



CHAPTEK I. 



PREFATORY AND APOLOGETIC. 



To al you that ben vertuous : gentyll : and free borne I 

 wryte and make this fymple treatife folowynge : by whyche 

 ye may haue the full craft of anglynge to dyfport you at your 

 lufte, to the entent that your aege maye the more floure and 

 the more longer to endure. [Treatife of Fyfjhynge with an 

 Angle, 1496. 



^HATEVEK pleasure a veteran 

 may find in occasionally recount- 

 ing his deeds of valor, the re- 

 hearsal at some time becomes 

 monotonous. So with these talks 

 on Angling. They were well 

 enough years ago, but they seem 

 to the writer thereof hardly in 

 harmony with the assumed gra- 

 vity of "furrows," "wrinkles" 

 and " hoary locks." Not that a true angler ever 

 passes the line which takes him into the land of 

 ailments and decrepitude. It is the glory of the 

 art that its disciples never grow old. The muscles 

 may relax and the beloved rod become a burden. 



