Izaak Walton: Angle

“Angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 1.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)
Context: Angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so: I mean, with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice

Men

“You will find angling to be like the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit and a world of other blessings attending upon it.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 1.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

World

“Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics that it can never be fully learnt.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Epistle to the Reader.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

Mathematics

“I am, sir, a Brother of the Angle.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 1.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

“It [angling] deserves commendations;… it is an art worthy the knowledge and practice of a wise man.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 1.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

Art , Knowledge

“We may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries: "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did"; and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 5. Referring to William Butler, styled by Dr. Fuller in his "Worthies" (Suffolk) the "Æsculapius of our age." He died in 1621. This first appeared in the second edition of "The Angler," 1655. Roger Williams, in his "Key into the Language of America," 1643, p. 98, says: "One of the chiefest doctors of England was wont to say, that God could have made, but God never did make, a better berry".
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

God

“Let the blessing of St. Peter's Master be…upon all that are lovers of virtue, and dare trust in his Providence, and be quiet and go a-angling.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 21.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

Lovers

“Sir Henry Wotton was a most dear lover and a frequent practiser of the Art of Angling; of which he would say, "'T was an employment for his idle time, which was then not idly spent, a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness;" and "that it begat habits of peace and patience in those that professed and practised it."”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 1.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

Sadness , Peace , Art , Lovers

“Doubt not but angling will prove to be so pleasant that it will prove to be, like virtue, a reward to itself.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 1. Compare: "Virtue is her own reward", John Dryden, Tyrannic Love, act iii, scene 1; "Virtue is to herself the best reward", Henry More, Cupid's Conflict; "Virtue is its own reward", Matthew Prior, Imitations of Horace, book iii. ode 2; John Gay, Epistle to Methuen; Home, Douglas, act iii, scene 1. "Virtue was sufficient of herself for happiness", Diogenes Laertius, Plato, xlii; "Ipsa quidem virtus sibimet pulcherrima merces" ("Virtue herself is her own fairest reward"), Silius Italicus (25?–99): Punica, lib. xiii. line 663.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)