The Complete Angler - Or, The Comtemplative Mans Recreation
Cód:
491_9781443758734
PREFACE, WALTOX Complete Angler ranks, by common consent, among the choicest morsels of our early literature, not as a mere manual of the piscatorial art, but as a work of imagination and truth, full of fine sentiment and virtuous precepts. Many of our best writers-Sir Walter Scott, Sheridan, Hallam, Washington bring, Miss Mitford-have rung its praises and Charles Lamb says, that it would sweeten a mans temper at any time to read it, and Christianise every discordant passion. It is, therefore, no matter of surprise that the demand for this beautiful pastoral is coltinuoua, and that there are so many editions of it before the public indeed so many, and some recent, that it would at first view almost seem superfluols to add to their number. But the publisher placed before me such a valuable store of materials, the accumulation of years, that it was quite evident the proposed edition would surpass all its predecessors, and be a great boon to the public I therefore willingly undertook a task every way congenial to my tastes and feelings. If a full appreciation of the piety and virtues of the Author, his honest simplicity of mind, his pure taste for the beautiful in nature, and his pleasing eloquence, were alone sufficient to qualify an editor of his immortal work, I should yield to no one but other qualifications are requisite, and I must leave the reader to determine how far they are exemplified in the volume before him. The two centuries which have elapsed since the first edition of tbe Complete Angler, have occasioned the necessity of many historical illustrations, several corrections of erroneous notions in matters of natural history, and large additions on the practice of angling. These have been collected from every available source, as will be seen by the numerous authorities quoted. Indeed, it has been endeavoured to combine all the advantages of preceding editions in the present. The notes of Sir John Hawkins have been taken bodily, excepting in some instances
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