Experienc'd Angler: or, Angling Improv'd. Being a General Discourse of
Angling," etc., to a book that was immortally complete in its first.

While "The Compleat Angler" was regarded mainly as a text-book for
practical anglers, one can understand its publisher wishing to make it
as complete as possible by the addition of such technical appendices;
but now, when it has so long been elevated above such literary
drudgery, there is no further need for their perpetuation. For I
imagine that the men to-day who really catch fish, as distinguished
from the men who write sentimentally about angling, would as soon think
of consulting Izaak Walton as they would Dame Juliana Berners. But
anyone can catch fish--can he, do you say?--the thing is to have so
written about catching them that your book is a pastoral, the freshness
of which a hundred editions have left unexhausted,--a book in which the
grass is for ever green, and the shining brooks do indeed go on
forever.

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE_.



[Frontispiece Text:


The
Compleat Angler
or the
Contemplative Man's
Recreation.