Salmonia: or days of fly fishing. In a series of conversations. With some account of the habits of fishes belonging to the genus Salmo / By an angler [i.e. Sir H. Davy].

  • Humphry Davy
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Salmonia: or days of fly fishing. In a series of conversations. With some account of the habits of fishes belonging to the genus Salmo / By an angler [i.e. Sir H. Davy]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    “A quaint old cruel coxcomb*.” I must say, a practice of this great fisherman, where he recommends you to pass the hook through the body of a frog with care, as though you loved him, in order to keep him alive longer, cannot but be considered as cruel. Hal.—I do not justify either the expression or the practice of Walton in this instance; but remember, / fish only with inanimate baits, or imitations of them, and I will not exhume or expose the ashes of the dead, nor vindicate the memory of Walton, at the expense of Byron, who, like Johnson, was no fisherman: but the moral and religious habits of Walton, his sim- plicity of manners, and his well-spent life, ex- onerate him from the charge of cruelty; and the book of a coxcomb would not have been so great a favourite with most persons of re- fined taste. A noble lady, long distinguished at court for pre-eminent beauty and grace, and * From Don Juan, Canto XII. Stanza CVI. “ 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.” b2
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