CHAP. I.] THE FIRST DAY. 51 



I might here enlarge myself, by telling you what commenda- 

 tions our learned Perkins bestows on Angling ; and how dear a 

 lover, and great a practiser of it, our learned Dr Whitaker * was ; 

 as indeed many others of great learning have been. But I will 

 content myself with two memorable men, that lived near to our 

 own time, whom I also take to have been ornaments to the art 

 of Angling. 



^ The first is Dr Nowel, sometime dean of the cathedral 

 church of St Paul, in London, where his monument stands yet 

 -undefaced ; f a man that, in the reformation of Queen Elizabeth, 

 not that of Henry VIII., was so noted for his meek spirit, deep 

 learning, prudence, and piety, that the then Parliament and Con- 

 vocation, both chose, enjoined, and trusted him to be the man to 

 make a Catechism for public use, such a one as should stand as 

 a rule for faith and manners to their posterity. And the good 

 old man, though he was very learned, yet knowing that God leads 



VARIATION, 



8 Let me give you the example of two men more, that have lived nearer to our own 

 times : first Doctor Nowel, sometimes Dean of St Paul's (in which church his monument 

 stands yet undefaced), a man, &c. 



* William Perkins was a learned divine, and a pious and painful preacher : Dr 

 William Whitaker was an able writer in the Romish controversy, and Regius Professoi 

 of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. They both flourished at the latter end oi 

 the sixteenth century. I remark the extreme caution of our author in this passage ; for 

 he says not of Perkins, as he does of Whitaker, that he was a practiser of, but only that 

 he bestows (in some of his writings we must conclude) great commendations on angling. 

 Perkins had the misfortune to want the use of his right hand ; as we find intimated In 

 this distich on him : — 



Dextera quamtumvis fuerat tibi manca, docendi 

 Pollebas mira dexteritate tamen. 



Though Nature hath thee of thy right hand bereft, 

 Right well thou writest with thy hand that's left. 



And therefore can hardly be supposed capable of even baiting his hook. The fact 

 respecting Whitaker is thus attested by Dr Fuller, in his Holy State, book iii. chap. 13 ; 

 " Fishing with an angle is to some rather a torture than a pleasure, to stand an hour as 

 mute as the fish they mean to take ; yet herewithal Dr Whitaker was much delighted." 

 To these examples of divines lovers of Angling, I here add (1784) that of Dr Leigh, the 

 present Master of Baliol College, Oxford, who, though turned of ninety, makes it the 

 recreation of his vacant hours. — H. He died in 1790. 



t Dr Alexander Nowel, a learned divine, and a famous preacher in the reign of King 

 Edw. VI. ; upon whose death he, with many other Protestants, fled to Germany, where 

 he lived many years. In 1561 he was made Dean of St Paul's ; and in 1601 died. The 

 monument mentioned in the text was undoubtedly consumed, with the church, in the 

 fire of London ; but the inscription thereon is preserved in Stow's Survey, edit. 1633, 

 page 362. See A then. Oxott. 313. An engraving of the monument itself is in Dugdale's 

 History of St Paul's Cathedral. — H. Dr Dunham Whitaker, in his History of 

 Whalley, says of Nowel, " He is recorded by Isaac Walton, a man of the same tranquil 

 devotion, and who attained nearly to the same length of days with himself, to have 

 spent a tenth part of his time in Angling, an amusement suited beyond every other to 

 calm and contemplative minds, and sacred, as it should seem, to the relaxation of emi- 

 nent divines. Donne, Herbert, Whitaker, and after them Archbishop Sheldon, having 

 been fondly attached to it."— P. 482. 



