b INTRODUCTION. 



His, wanton sport,—- a sport unblest, — 

 A sport I ever must detest.* 



Return— and should you, seeking Health, — 

 The maid most coy when woo'd by wealth, 

 Westward ascend — behold a Spring 

 That might, perchance, even heal a King. 

 But who its modest worth shall tell — 

 What poet sings of Ladywell ? 



* Lord Byron has thus denounced the sport of angling: 

 "And angling, too, that solitary vice, 



Whatever Isaac Walton sings or says : 

 The quaint, old cruel coxcomb in his gullet^ 

 Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it." 



Dow Juan, Canto XIII. 

 His Lordship adds, in a note, w It would have taught him huma- 

 nity at least. This sentimental savage, whom it is a mode to 

 quote (among the novelists) to shew their sympathy for innocent 

 sports and old songs, teaches how to sew up frogs, and break 

 their legs by way of experiment, in addition to the art of ang- 

 ling, the cruellest, the coldest, and the stupidest of pretended 

 sports. They may talk of the beauties of Nature, hut the 

 angler merely thinks of his dish offish ; he has no leisure to take 

 his eyes off the stream, and a single bite is worth to him more 

 than all the scenery around." It must, however, be admitted, 

 notwithstanding Walton's bad taste in regard to angling, that 

 his book is an amusing one ; and has, very probably, induced 

 many persons to follow the sport, who would otherwise never 

 have thought of it. Surely, notwithstanding all that PValtoii 

 says, the sitting for hours by the margin of a brook or river, is 

 not a healthy occupation, whatever the angler may make, of it ; 

 surely man, intellectual man, can find something more praise- 

 worthy than such solitary inactivity to gratify his aberrant 

 inclinations! 



