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Show FISHERMAN'S LUCK satiety, and seek a better consolation for the winter of his discontent in the entertainment of fishing in books. ANGLING is the only sport that boasts the honour of having given a classic to literature. Izaak Walton's success with The Compleat Angler was a fine illustration of fisherman's luck. He set out, with some aid from an adept in fly-fishing and cookery, named Thomas Barker, to produce a little "discourse of fish and fishing" which should serve as a useful manual for quiet persons inclined to follow the contemplative man's recreation. He came home with a book which has made his name beloved by ten generations of gentle readers, and given him a secure place in the Pantheon of letters, -not a haughty eminence, but a modest niche, all his own, and ever adorned with grateful offerings of fresh flowers. This was great luck. But it was well-deserved, and therefore it has not been grudged or envied. Walton was a man so peaceful and contented, so friendly in his disposition, and so innocent in 150 FISHING IN BOOKS all his goings, that only three other writers, so far as I know, have ever spoken ill of him. One was that sour-complexioned Cromwellian trooper, Richard Franck, who wrote in 1658 an envious book entitled Northern Memoirs, calculated for the Meridian of Scotland, &c., to which is added The Conternplative and Pmctical Angler. In this book the furious Franck first pays Walton the flattery of imitation, and then further adorns him with abuse, calling The Compleat Angler "an indigested octavo, stuffed with morals from Dubravius and others," and more than hinting that the father of anglers knew little or nothing of "his uncultivated art." Walton was a Churchman and a Loyalist, you see, while Franck was a Commonwealth man and an Independent. The second detractor of Walton was Lord Byron, who wrote "The guainl, old, cruel coxcomb in his gullet Slwuld have a /wok, and a small trout to pull u." But Byron is certainly a poor authority on the <jeuality of mercy. His contempt need ne~t cause an 151 |