"
Walton has been quoted even more than any of the writers whom he
quotes. It would be difficult, even if it were not ungrateful, to
write about angling without referring to him. Some pretty saying,
some wise reflection from his pages, suggests itself at almost every
turn of the subject.
And yet his book, though it be the best, is not the only readable
one that his favourite recreation has begotten. The literature of
angling is extensive, as any one may see who will look at the list
of the collection presented by Mr. John Bartlett to Harvard
University, or study the catalogue of the piscatorial library of Mr.
Dean Sage, of Albany, who himself has contributed an admirable book
on THE RISTIGOUCHE.
Nor is this literature altogether composed of dry and technical
treatises, interesting only to the confirmed anglimaniac, or to the
young novice ardent in pursuit of practical information. There is a
good deal of juicy reading in it.
Books about angling should be divided (according to De Quincey's
method) into two classes,--the literature of knowledge, and the
literature of power.
The first class contains the handbooks on rods and tackle, the
directions how to angle for different kinds of fish, and the guides
to various fishing-resorts. The weakness of these books is that
they soon fall out of date, as the manufacture of tackle is
improved, the art of angling refined, and the fish in once-famous
waters are educated or exterminated.
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