INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS 5 



is asked, " What gettest thou by thine art 1 " " Big 

 loaves, clothing, and money." " How do you take 

 them 1" "I ascend a ship, and cast my net into the 

 river ; I also throw in a hook, a halt, and a rod." 

 " Suppose the fishes are unclean 1" "I throw the 

 unclean out, and take the clean for food." " Where do 

 you sell your fish ? " " In the city." " Who buys 

 them 1 " " The citizens ; I cannot take so many as I can 

 sell." " What fishes do you take ? " " Eels, haddocks, 

 minnows, and eel-pouts, skate, and lampreys, and what- 

 ever swims in the rivers." " Why do you not fish in the 

 sea ? " " Sometimes I do ; but rarely, because a great 

 ship is necessary here." ^ 



The historian Bede tells us, that Wilfrid rescued the 

 people of Sussex from famine in the eighth century, by 

 teaching them to catch fish : " for though the sea and 

 their rivers abounded with fish, they had no more 

 skill in the art than to take eels. The servants of 

 Wilfrid threw into the sea nets made out of those by 

 which they had obtained eels, and thus directed them 

 to a new source of plenty." ^ 



It is an article in the Penitentiale of Egbert, that fish 

 might be bought, though dead. In the same work, 

 herrings are allowed to be eaten j and it states that, 

 when boiled, they are salutary in fever and diarrhcea, 

 and that their gall, mixed with pepper, is good for a sore 

 mouth.^ 



Such are the historical relations between our Saxon 

 forefathers and the art of angling ; and we can trace no 

 abatement in the original impulse to cultivate and extend 

 its practice in the subsequent epochs of our nation. 

 We carry, at this moment, a love of the sport to every 

 quarter of the globe, wherever our conquests and com- 

 mercial connections extend. In fact, we are the great 

 piscatory schoolmasters that " are abroad," teaching all 

 mankind how to multiply their rational outdoor plea- 

 sures, in the pursuit of an amusement that is at once 

 contemplative, intellectual, and healthful. 



' Turner's Anglo-Saxons, vol. ill. p. 23. 



2 Bede, lib. i. ' Wilkina, Cone. p. 123. 



