The complete angler ; or, Contemplative man's recreation, being a discourse on rivers, fish-ponds, fish, and fishing / In two parts: the first written by Mr. Isaac Walton; the second by Charles Cotton, esq. With the lives of the authors: and notes, historical, critical, supplementary, and explanatory, by Sir John Hawkins, knt.

  • Izaak Walton
Date:
1808
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The complete angler ; or, Contemplative man's recreation, being a discourse on rivers, fish-ponds, fish, and fishing / In two parts: the first written by Mr. Isaac Walton; the second by Charles Cotton, esq. With the lives of the authors: and notes, historical, critical, supplementary, and explanatory, by Sir John Hawkins, knt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    cellent rules, and valuable discoveries; and it may, with truth, be said, that few have ever perused them, but have, unless it was their own fault, found them- selves not only better anglers, but better men. . A book which had been published by Col. Robert. Venables, some years before*, called the Experienced Angler, or Angling improved, which has its merit, was also now reprinted; and the booksellers prefixed to it a general title of the Universal Angler, under which they sometimes sold the three, bound together :. but the book being written in a manner very different from that of the Complete Angler, it was not thought proper to let it accompany the present edition; hows ever, some use has been made of it in the notes. It has a preface signed J. WV. undoubtedly of Walton’s; writing. cary And here it may not be amiss to remark, that be- tween the two parts of the Complete Angler there is an obvious difference; the Latter [Part] though it abounds in descriptions ofa wild and romantic country, — and exemplifies the intercourses of hospitable urbanity ——is of a didactic form, and contains in it more of in- struction in the art it professes to teach, than of moral reflection: whereas the former, besides the pastoral simplicity that distinguishes it, is replete with sen- timents that edify,—and precepts that recommend, in the most persuasive manner, the practice of religion, and the exercise of patience, humility, contentedness, — and other moral virtues. I[n this view of it, the book might be said to be the only one of the kind, but that’ I find somewhat like an imitation of it extant in a tract entitled Angling improved to spiritual uses, part of an Octayo volume written by that eminent person the Hon. Robert Boyle, an angler, as himself confesses, and published in 1665, with this title, ‘¢ Occasional ** Reflections upon several subjects; whereto, is pre- *¢ mised a Discourse about such kind of thoughts.” Great names are entitled to great respect. The chae* racter of Mr. Boyle, as a devout ¢hristian and deep - * In 1662. ©