INTRODUCTION 



earliest and most prolific of modern magazine 

 writers, and to rehabilitate fittingly a veri- 

 table little masterpiece, worthy, in its proper 

 place on library shelves, to stand side by side 

 with no less a work than the Compleat An- 

 gler, which it so closely resembles in its ex- 

 pression of a lifelong devotion to the cause 

 of sport. There is temperamentally a greater 

 ardor in Christopher North's enthusiasm, and 

 there is a greater variety of interests repre- 

 sented in the rounds of his rural employ- 

 ments. Walton was all his life a single-hearted 

 lover of the rod and reel, while North was 

 Piscator, Venator, with many things else, all 

 in one. But in them both there is the same 

 sense of poetry in their enjoyment of their 

 chosen pastimes which makes them kindred 

 spirits of romance. 



In this day of renewed interest in "pastimes 

 pursued on flood, field and fell," and the in- 

 troduction of many of them into America, 

 there should be a peculiar place for Christo- 



[ viii ] 



