CHAPTER III. 



FROM THE TREATISE TO THE 

 COMPLEAT ANGLER. 



And in mine opinion I could higMy commend 

 your Orcliard, if either through it, or hard by it, 

 there should runne a pleasant River with silver 

 streams ; you might sit in your Mount, and angle 

 a peckled Trout or sleighty Eele, or some other 

 dainty Fish. 



A New Orchard and Garden, 

 By William Lawson. 1618. 



iLY FISHING made no big 

 advance for a century and a 

 half after the publication of 

 the Treatise. That book, the 

 standard work, went through 

 sixteen editions or reprints in 

 the hundred years that followed its appearance. 

 The England of Henry VII. had passed into 

 that of Henry VIII., of Mary and of 

 Elizabeth : Charles I. had lost his head and 

 the Lord Protector ruled, before a school of 

 writers arose who carried the art a long way 

 forward. However, its history is not wholly 



