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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON ANGLING. 



Taking therein no little delectation, 

 To think how strange, how wonderful they be ; 



Framing thereof an inward contemplation 

 To set his heart from other fancies free : 



And whilst he looks on these with joyful eye, 



His mind is wrapt above the starry sky." 



If Angling can give birth to such pleasant and wholesome 

 thoughts as these, who will deny that it is an employment 

 both profitable and amusing ? 



WALTON further says, that " it is the contemplative man's 

 recreation ; for it is eminently calculated to still the stormy 

 passions of the breast, and lead to the calm and tranquil 

 pleasures arising from frequent meditation of the beauties of 

 nature." What more powerful argument can the Angler have 

 in justification of this amusement 1 Volumes could not have 

 said more. 



Sir HUMPHREY DAVY remarks : " For my health, I may 

 thank my ancestors, after my God: and I have not squander- 

 dered what was so bountifully given : and though I do not 

 expect, like our Arch-Patriarch Walton, to number ninety 

 years and upwards, yet I hope as long as I can enjoy a vernal 

 day, the warmth and light of the sunbeams, still to haunt the 

 streams, following the example of our late venerable friend, 

 the President of the Royal Academy,* with whom I have 

 thrown the fly, caught trout, and enjoyed a delightful day of 

 angling and social amusement, by the bright clear streams of 

 the Wandle." 



The celebrated Dr. Paley said, in reply to a person anx- 

 ious about the completion of one of his great philosophical 

 works, that " it would be finished as soon as the fly-fishing 

 season was over;" evidently considering this diversion of 

 equal importance with those mental efforts that have render- 

 ed his name almost immortal. 



* Benjamin West. 



