ANCIENT AND MODERN FISHING-. 9 



sufficient, without the aid of any other accessories, to 

 wake pleasant feelings of the past. 'Quels souvenirs 

 touchans cette ligne peut rappeler/ as Lacepede touch- 

 ingly writes: 'eUe retrace h Tenfance ses jeux; k I'^ge 

 mur, ses loisirs; h la vieiUesse, ses distractions; au coeur 

 sensible, le ruisseau voisin du toit paternel; au voyageur, 

 le repos occupe des peuplades dont il a envie la douce 

 quietude; au philosophe, I'origine de I'art.' 



Long has the art, immortalized by Walton, been natu- 

 ralized in our country; and many of the quaint titles of 

 fishing-books between two and three hixadred years old, 

 the recommendation of it by canon law to the clergy, 

 as ' favourable to the health of their body, and specy- 

 aUy of their soules,' and the favourable report made of 

 it by a canonical prioress, alike vouch, in obsolete Eng- 

 lish, for the prevalence of a pastime as much followed 

 in times long past as in the present day: ' The angler at 

 his lust hath his holsom walke, and mery at his ease, 

 a sweete savourg of the meade floures that makyth him 

 hungry: he hereth the melodyous armony of fowles, he 

 seeth the yonge swans, heeorons, duckes, and cotes, and 

 many other fowles with their brodes, whych me seemyth 

 better than all the noyse of houndys, the blastes of 

 homeys, and the scrye of fooles that hunting fawkeners 

 and fowlers can mayke; and if the angler take fysshe, 

 surely then is there no man merrier than he is in his 

 spryte.'* But the following elaborately beautiful poem, 

 by Davors, published about two hundred and thirty 

 years ago, in praise of this charming pastime, enters 

 so folly into the arcana of its enjoyments and dehghts 

 as quite exhausts the subject; we therefore commit it, 

 ' simplex munditiis,' to our readers, ' ut indocti discant 

 et ament meminisse periti.' 



* Book of St. Albans, 1496. 



