The cavern’d bank, his old secure above,
And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool,
Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand,
That feels him still, yet to his furious course
Gives way, you, now retiring, following now,
Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage,
Till floating broad upon his breathless side,
And to his fate abandon’d, to the shore
You gayly drag your unresisting prize.”
Angling, like every other manly pastime, has had numerous assailants—some of them “men of mark,” as in the case of Lord Byron, whose “fine plirensy” in denouncing Walton and the gentle art failed not to draw down upon himself the laughter of a world. The plaint of Lord Byron runs thus: