REMARKS PRELIMINARY. 37 



and the religious sportswoman of 1496, Dame 

 Juliana Barnes, who mixed up their descantations 

 with pretences of its being favourable to holy medi- 

 tations, from the rural quietude of the pursuit. 

 This must have been alleged by these early anglers 

 and writers through a sort of mental defence against 

 a superstitious suspicion, that it was not perhaps 

 the most Christian way of spending the sweet sum- 

 mer days of a brief probationary term of an eternal 

 existence. Hence the struggle to the present hour 

 of a hundred-and-nine scribblers on the subject to 

 maintain a point, of the propriety of which they 

 are by no means thoroughly convinced : only, find- 

 ing the pastime a kind of exercise agreeable to their 

 propensities like that of cats to hunt mice, and lords 

 foxes they make a specious pretence of considering 

 its gratification, not only as no sin, but rather in 

 the light of a duty. Now the truth lies in this as 

 in many disputed points, midway between the two 

 extremes. No one who inclines to go a-fishing can 

 reasonably suppose the pursuit any way very parti- 

 cular in point of morality let him allege what he 

 may, we believe that the angler foregoes such con- 

 siderations. We view the matter simply in this 

 way, that every man is so much of a boy (which may 

 often be the best part of his character) that he goes 



