the c Compleat Angler.' 



37 



at five guineas price ; the bands of the book being made of 

 wood from the door of Cotton's fifhing-houfe, taken off by Mr. 

 Higgs near the lock, where he was fure old Izaak muft have 

 touched it. It fold for 6^1. at the difperfion of that gentle- 

 man's library. 



Mr. Higgs, by the way, proved himfelf, in this latter inftance, 

 to be a fingular mixture of the worfhipper and the iconoclaft. 



" Gofden's own illuftrated copy," fays Dr. Bethune cc (if I 

 make out correctly a pencilled note appended to the above), un- 

 bound, fingle leaves, in a portfolio, was difpofed of at 1 10/. !" 



It was probably about this period that angling-book collect- 

 ing firfl: took fhape and confidence. At all events, the earlieft 

 record of it, that has come under our obfervation, occurs in a 

 fale-catalogue of the library of Philip Splidt, Efq. (1814), in 

 which attention is fpecially invited to a <c very rare collection of 

 books on angling." But that the tafte was not then what it 

 was deftined afterwards to become — one of the manifold phafes 

 of bibliomania — is evident from the circumftance that this fo- 

 called rare collection confifted of but twenty-feven volumes, 

 and that fcarcely a fingle work amongft them merited the 

 designation in any ferious fenfe. 



How little zealous refearch had, hitherto, been brought to 

 bear on the queftion, is mown by Mr. Ellis's cc Catalogue of 

 Books on Angling, with fome brief notices of feveral of their 

 authors," which he contributed to the " Britifh Bibliographer" 

 in 181 1. This earlieft regifter of the literature of the fport 

 contains but eighty-fix works, although \t flwuld have included 

 nearly twice that number. 



