THE

ART OF ANGLING,

Confirmed by actual Experience;

INTERSPERSED WITH

SEVERAL NEW AND RECENT DISCOVERIES ;
To which is now added

NOBBS'S COMPLETE TROLLER.

THE WHOLE FORMING

A COMPLETE MUSEUM,

FOR THE

LOVERS OF THAT PLEASING AND RATIONAL
RECREATION.

ALSO

PROGNOSTICS OF THE WEATHER

INDEPENDENT OF THE BAROMETER;

And

A NEW CHAPTER,

Containing Rules, how best to form a competent Judgment of the
changes that take place, in that useful instrument.

BY THOMAS BEST,

CAREFULLY REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED.

The pleasant'st Angling is, to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treach'rous bait.

SHAKESPEAR,

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR B. AND R. CROSBY & CO, STATIONERS'

COURT, PATERNOSTER-ROW.

And Sold by every Bookscher and Tackle Seller in the United Kingdom

PREFACE.

SH431 12451844

SINCE the first publication of this treatise, upwards of twenty thousand have been sold; by this encouragement I have undertaken to present the public with this new edition, corrected and carefully revised : and where the angler will meet with many recent observations, not to be found in any other halientic production, which I make no doubt will be equally well received: I may say, without boasting, that it is universally liked, few noble or gentlemen anglers not giving it a place in their libraries. Angling is of very great antiquity, which good old Isaac Walton, the Father of anglers, has fully demonstrated. Not only kings and princes, but even queens and ladies of the first rank, have taken a delight in this rational and pleasing recreation. In the various authors who have written on this subject, I have never observed the name of our immortal Bard, Shakespear, mentioned: he certainly was a lover of this diversion,

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