CHAPTEE II. 



ANGLING AND ANGLEKS VINDICATED. 



We care not who says, 



And intends it dispraise, 

 That an angler to a fool is next neighbor. 



Let him prate ; what care we ; 



We're as honest as he, 

 And so let him take that for his labor ! 



[Charles Cotton. 



HAT good Sir Izaak Walton said 

 two hundred years ago, of those 

 who scoff at angling as "a 

 heavy, contemptible, dull recre- 

 ation," is quite as appropriate 

 for their successors of to-day. 



"You know, gentlemen, it is an 

 easy thing to scoff at any art or recre- 

 ation: a little wit, mixed with, ill- 

 nature, confidence and malice, will 

 do it ; but though they often venture 

 boldly, yet they are often caught, even in their own trap, 

 according to that of Lucian, the father of the family of 

 scoffers : 



' Lucian well skilled in scoffing, this hath writ : 

 Friend, that's your folly which you think your wit; 

 This you vent oft, void both of wit and fear, 

 Meaning another, when yourself you jeer! ' 



"If to this you add what Solomon says of scoffers, that 

 * they are an abomination to mankind, ' let him that thinks 



