The Secrets of Angling

"[3] The first edition contained a dedication by "R.I."(Roger Jackson who was the publisher)[3] to John Harborne of Tackley, County of Oxford, whom he called "My much respected friend.

[10] The following is the first verse of Book 1: The work contains what is thought to be the first printed description of a reel:[11] The third verse of Book 1 refers to the rivers Boyd and Avon, and the villages of Doynton and Wick: The woodcut in the 1613 edition title represents an angler with a fish on his hook, and the motto, "Well fayre the pleasure that brings such treasure," and a man treading on a serpent with a sphere at the end of his rod and line labelled, "Hold hooke and line, then all is mine."

The third edition, which may be 1630, was "printed at London for John" [Jackson], has a slightly different woodcut, with a varied motto, "Well feare the Pleasure, That yeelds such Treasure."

[14] Biographer Morgan George Watkins wrote that: "The author has chosen a measure at once sweet and full of power, and its interlinked melodies lure the reader onwards with much the same kind of pleasure as the angler experiences, who follows the murmuring of a favourite trout stream.

"[3] Marie Loretto Lilly stated in her book The Georgic that The Secrets of Angling "is not a great poem, but it should hold an honoured place for sweetness of verse, for its beauty of description and for the lessons that the poet so gently and happily teaches.