ghbor; living at Clerkenwell in
1653, when he published "The Compleat Angler"; after the
Restoration lived at Winchester and Salisbury; wrote lives
of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, Herbert and Sanderson.

I

THE ANTIQUITY OF ANGLING[58]

_Piscator_--O sir, doubt not that angling is an art: is it not an art
to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? a trout that is more
sharp-sighted than any hawk you have named, and more watchful and
timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold; and yet I doubt not to
catch a brace or two to-morrow for a friend's breakfast. Doubt not,
therefore, sir, but that angling is an art, and an art worth your
learning. The question is rather, whether you be capable of learning
it? for angling is somewhat like poetry--men are to be born so: I
mean, with inclinations to it, tho both may be heightened by discourse
and practise; but he that hopes to be a good angler must not only
bring an inquiring, searching, observing wit, but he must bring a
large measure of hope and patience, and a love and propensity to the
art itself; but having once got and practised it, then doubt not but
angling will prove to be so pleasant that it will prove to be like
virtue, a reward to itself.

_Venator_--Sir, I am now become so full of expectation, that I long
much to have you proceed, and in the order you propose.

_Piscator_--Then first, for the antiquity of angling, of which I shall
not say much, but only this: some say it is as ancient as Deucalion's
flood,[59] others, that Belus,[60] who was the first inventor of godly
and virtuous recreations, was the first inventor of angling; and some
others say--for former times have had their disquisitions about the
antiquity of it--that Seth, one of the sons of Adam, taught it to his
sons, and that by them it was derived to posterity; others say that he
left it engraven on those pillars which he erected, and trusted to
preserve the knowledge of the mathematics, music, and the rest of that
precious knowledge and those useful arts, which by God's appointment
or allowance and his noble industry were thereby preserved from
perishing in Noah's flood.

These, sir, have been the opinions of several men that have possibly
endeavored to make angling more ancient than is needful, or may well
be warranted; but for my part, I shall content myself in telling you
that angling is much more ancient than the Incarnation of our Savior:
for in the prophet Amos, mention