I might here enlarge myself, by telling you what commendations our
learned Perkins bestows on Angling: and how dear a lover, and great a
practiser of it, our learned Dr. Whitaker was; as indeed many others of
great learning have been. But I will content myself with two memorable
men, that lived near to our own time, whom I also take to have been
ornaments to the art of Angling.
The first is Dr. Nowel, sometime dean of the cathedral church of St.
Paul, in London, where his monument stands yet undefaced; a man that,
in the reformation of Queen Elizabeth, not that of Henry VIII., was so
noted for his meek spirit, deep learning, prudence, and piety, that the
then Parliament and Convocation, both, chose, enjoined, and trusted
him to be the man to make a Catechism for public use, such a one as
should stand as a rule for faith and manners to their posterity. And the
good old man, though he was very learned, yet knowing that God leads
us not to heaven by many, nor by hard questions, like an honest Angler,
made that good, plain, unperplexed Catechism which is printed with
our good old Service-book. I say, this good man was a dear lover and
constant practiser of Angling, as any age can produce: and his custom
was to spend besides his fixed hours of prayer, those hours which, by
command of the church, were enjoined the clergy, and voluntarily
dedicated to devotion by many primitive Christians, I say, besides those
hours, this good man was observed to spend a tenth part of his time in
Angling; and, also, for I have conversed with those which have
conversed with him, to bestow a tenth part of his revenue, and usually
all his fish, amongst the poor that inhabited near to those rivers in
which it was caught; saying often, "that charity gave life to religion ":
and, at his return to his house, would praise God he had spent that day
free from worldly trouble; both harmlessly, and in a recreation that
became a churchman.
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