A SHORT DISCOURSE* BY WAY OF POST- 

 SCRIPT, TOUCHING THE LAWS OF 

 ANGLING. 



My good Friend, 



I CANNOT but tender my particular thanks to you, for that you have 

 been pleased by three editions of your Complete Angler, freely to dis- 

 pense your dear-bovjght experiences to all the lovers of that art ; and have 

 thereby so excellently vindicated the legality thereof, as to Divine appro- 

 bation, that if I should go about to say more in that behalf, it indeed were 

 to light a candle to the sun : but since all pleasures (though never so 

 innocent in themselves) lose that stamp, when they are either pursued with 

 inordinate affections, or to the prejudice of another ; therefore as to the 

 former every man ought to endeavour, through a serious consideration of 

 the vanity of worldly contentments, to moderate his affections thereunto, 

 whereby they may be made of excellent use, as some poisons allayed are in 

 physic : and as to the latter, we are to have recourse to the known laws, 

 ignorance whereof excuseth no man, and therefore by their directions so to 

 square our actions, that we fiurt no man, but keep close to that golden 

 rule, "To do to all men as we would ourselves be done unto." 



Now concerning the Art of Angling, we may conclude. Sir, that as you 

 have proved it to be of great antiquity, so I find it favoured by the laws of 

 this kingdom ; for where provision is made by our statutes prime Elizab. 

 cap. 17, against taking Fish by Nets that be not of ?uch and such a size 

 there set down, yet those law-makers had so much respect to Anglers, 

 as to except them, and leave them a liberty to catch as big as they 

 could, and as little as they would catch. And yet though this 

 Apostolical recreation be simply in itself lawful, yet no man can^ go 

 upon another man's ground to fish, without his license, but that he is a 

 trespasser ; but if a man have license to enter into a close or ground 

 for such a space of time, there, though he practise Angling all that 

 time, he is not a trespasser ; because his fishing is no abuse of his license : 

 but this is to be understood of running streams, and not of ponds or stand- 

 ing pools ; for in case of a pond or standing pool, the owner thereof hath a 

 property in the fish, and they are so far said to be his, that he may have 

 trespass for the fish against any one that shall take them without his 



* This "Discourse," which was prefixed to the third and subsequent editions of The 

 Complete Angler, was evidently written by a friend and admirer of Walton ; it could 

 not, therefore, with propriety he omitted in an edition of that work. The numerous 

 additions and alterations which have been made in the Laws of Angling since Walton 

 lived, render it impossible to state those changes in notes ; and the publication of *' An 

 Essay on Aquatic Rights, intended as an illustration of the Law relative to Fishing, by 

 Henry Schultes, 8vo, 1811," would, under any circumstances, render such notes super- 

 fluous. 



