52 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [part r. 



us not to heaven by many, nor by hard questions, hke an honest 

 Angler, made that good, plain, unperplexed Catechism which is 

 printed with our good old Service-book.* I say, this good man 

 was a dear lover and constant practiser of Angling, as any age 

 can produce : and his custom was to spend besides his fixed 

 hours of prayer, those hours which, by command of the Church, 

 were enjoined the clergy, and voluntarily dedicated to devotion 

 by many primitive Christians, I say, besides those hours, this 

 good man was observed to spend a tenth part of his time in 

 Angling ; and, also, for I have conversed with those which have 

 conversed with him, to bestow a tenth part of his revenue, and 

 usually all his fish, amongst the poor that inhabited near to those 

 rivers in which it was caught ; saying often, " that charity gave 

 life to religion : " and, at his return to his house, would praise 

 God he had spent that day free from worldly trouble ; both 

 harmlessly, and in a recreation that became a Churchman. And 

 this good man was well content, if not desirous, that posterity 

 should know he was an Angler ; as may appear by his picture, 

 now to be seen, and carefully kept, in Brazen-nose College, to 

 which he was a liberal benefactor. In which picture he is drawn, 

 leaning on a desk, with his Bible before him ; and on one hand 

 of him, his lines, hooks, and other tackling, lying in a round; 

 and on his other hand are his Angle-rods of several sorts ; and 



* The question who was the compiler of our Church Catechism must, I fear, be reck- 

 oned among the desiderata of our ecclesiastical history. It is certain that Nowel drew 

 up two catechisms, a greater and a less ; the latter in the Title, as it stands iu the 

 English translation, expressly directed *' to be learned of all youth, next after the little 

 Catechisme appoj^nted in the Booke of Common Prayer." But, besides that both were 

 originally written in Latin, and translated by other hands, the lesser, though declared to 

 be an abridgment of the greater, was at least twenty times longer than that in the 

 Common Prayer Book. And whereas, "Walton says, that in the reformation of Eliza- 

 beth, the then Parliament enjoined Nowel to make a Catechism, &c., and that he made 

 that which is printed in our old Service-book, the catechism in question is to be found in 

 both the Liturgies of Edw. VI. (the first whereof was set forth in 1549), and also in his 

 Primer, printed in 1552 ; and Nowel is not enumerated among the compilers of the 

 Service-book. Further, both the Catechisms of Nowel contain the doctrine of the 

 sacraments; but that in the old Service-book is silent on that head, and so continued, 

 till, upon an objection of the Puritans in the conference at Hampton Court, an expla- 

 nation of the sacraments was drawn up by Dr John Overall, and printed in the next 

 impression of the Book of Common Prayer. It may further be remarked that, in the 

 conference above mentioned, the two Catechisms are contradistinguished, in an 

 expression of Dr Reynolds ; who objected that the Catechism in the Common Prayer 

 Book was too brief, and that by Dean Nowel too long for novices to learn by heart. 

 See Fuller's Ch. Hist, book x. page 14. So much of Walton's assertion as respects the 

 sanction given to a catechism of Nowel's is true ; but it was the larger catechism, drawn 

 up at the request of Secretary Cecil and other great persons, that was so approved, and. 

 that not by Parliament, but by a convocation held anno 1562, temp. Eliz. See Strype's 

 Life of Archiiskop Parker f 202. From all which particulars it must be inferred that 

 "Walton's assertion with respect to the Catechism in the Service-book, z>., the Book of 

 Common Prayer, is a mistake ; and although Strype, in his Memorials^ vol. 11. page 442, 

 concludes a catechism of_ Nowel's (mentioned in the said book, page 368, ei ifi loc. cit.) 

 to be the Church Catechism joined, ordinarily with our Common Prayer, he also must 

 have misunderstood the fact. — H. 



