48 NOTES ON FISH AND FISHING. 



Complete Angler (i. e. its several editions including the 

 fifth), that it seems to have had the effect of making 

 anglers rather shy of trying their hands at authorship ; 

 for during a period of a hundred years dating from the fifth 

 edition of Walton, or, as I might put it, down to the end 

 of the eighteenth century, but a very few works on angling 

 of any value made their appearance, though Walton and 

 Cotton during that period progressed to the fourteenth 

 edition. As, however, I find myself, almost contrary to 

 my original intention, involved in a History of the English 

 Literature of Fishing, and writing it at a greater length 

 and more systematically than I believe has yet been 

 attempted, I may as well refer to some of the authors 

 belonging to the period above named. 



In 1681 appeared Chetham's Angler's Vade Mecum — 

 or a compendious yet full discourse of Angling." In 1682 

 Nobbes published his Complete Trotter, and has since 

 enjoyed the title of the " Father of Trolling," though not 

 altogether deserved. In 1694 Eichard Franck had his 

 tilt against Walton, as aforesaid. In 1696 we have the 

 True Art of Angling, by J. S., which reached its fifth 

 edition in 1725; and in 1705 Secrets of Angling, by 

 C. Gr. In 1706 Eobert Howlett, "forty years a practi- 

 tioner in this art," published his Angling Improved and 

 Methodically Digested. In 1714 the Whole Art of 

 Fishing boasted to be a Collection and Improvement of 

 all that has been written on the subject, without being so. 

 In 1717 and 1718 Giles Jacob discoursed, among other 

 sporting matters, on Fish, Fishing, and Fishponds. In 

 1724 James Saunders published his Complcat Fisherman, 

 which gives an account of " the diverse ways of Fishing 

 now practised in Europe," and is the first book on angling 



