214 BIBL1OTHECA PISCATORIA. 



The experienced angler : or angling improv'd. Being a 

 general discourse of angling. Imparting the aptest vvayes 

 and choicest experiments for the taking of most sorts of fish 

 in pond or river. The third edition much enlarged. London, 

 printed for Richard Marriot, and are to be sold at his shop 

 under the KingVHead Tavern in Fleet-street. 1668. 8.; 

 [A-H, iii in eights; or title, pp. xiv., 95 (last misprinted 27); 



" Courteous reader," p. i.; table, pp. vi. Copies of this edition occur 



with the title-page of the first, and also with 95 and following page 



reprinted.] 



The fourth edition much enlarged. London, Richard Mar- 

 riot, 1676. 8.; 



[ A-H, 3 in eights ; or pp. xvi. 96. vi (table). Forms the third part 

 of " The universal angler," 1676. See WALTON (I.) This edition 

 has a new engraved-title, signed " F. H. Van Hotte," and inferior 

 in execution to that by Vaughan used in previous editions, of which 

 it is a copy. The plates of fish are the same as those in Walton's 

 fifth edition and have been re-engraved in reverse, probably also by 

 Van Hotte.] 



The fifth edition much enlarged. London, B. Tooke and 

 Thos. Sawbridge. 1683. pp. xiv. 96. vi. (table). 8.; 



[ With memoir of Col. Robert Venables]. London, Sep- 

 timus Prowett and Thomas Gosden, 1825. pp. vi, xxiii. title., 

 p. iv. iv. 61. 12.; [with new title-page:] London, T. 

 rosden, 1827. 12. 



[ Gosden's reprint, of which a few copies were on larger paper, 

 contains some very minute and finished engravings of fish, mounted 

 in the text, sometimes to be had separately on one sheet. 



The first edition was advertised in the " Kingdom's Intelligencer" 

 of Sept. 9th 1661, as "now newly extant," and was no doubt issued 

 in the Autumn of that year. The running title is "Angling 

 improved or profit and pleasure united." As a manual the book 

 deserves honorable mention. Col. Venables served in the Parlia- 

 mentary Army and in 1644 was made Governor of Chester. He 

 was sent with Penn in 1654 in command of the expedition for the 

 conquest of Hispaniola, and on their return from that disastrous 

 enterprise, the generals were imprisoned in the Tower. " It would 

 seem," observes Dr. Bethune in his edition of Walton, 1847, "that 

 the brave, once most successful, but in the end unfortunate soldier, 

 found consolation in angling and writing upon his quiet pleasures. 

 It is impossible to read his book without being convinced that, 

 whatever may have been his troubles, he was a wise and piously 

 disposed man." 



J. W.[alton] has contributed a courtly commendation of the 

 volume, addressed to his "ingenious friend the author," in which 

 he states that he "could never find in [other books] that judgment 

 and reason which you have manifested in this (as I may call it) 

 Epitome of Angling, since my reading whereof I cannot look upon 

 some notes of my own gathering but methinks I do puerilia trac- 

 tarc"~\ 



