INTRODUCTORY 3 



and for the comfort of those who have not the much- 

 despised gift of patience, we could point to a number 

 of celebrated anglers, who are by no means celebrated 

 as possessing this virtue, while numbers of the most 

 patient followers of Izaak Walton are very far from 

 having rivalled his success. Angling, when once 

 embarked in by any person possessed of a reasonable 

 amount of soul and brains, becomes a passion, and 

 like other passions will grow and feed upon the 

 smallest possible amount of encouragement. Fish or 

 no fish, whenever opportunity offers, the angler may 

 be found at the water-side. If this only went on in 

 fine weather, people could understand it, but nowa- 

 days, even in summer, the weather is not always fine ; 

 and when a man is seen standing in the water for 

 hours in a torrent of rain, with benumbed hands 

 and an empty basket, doubts of the individual's 

 sanity naturally suggest themselves, mixed with 

 feelings of pity for the terrible consequences in the 

 way of colds, rheumatism, &c., which it is supposed 

 must inevitably follow, but which don't. We have 

 it from high medical authority, that rheumatism 

 is more engendered by hot rooms and fires than 

 by exposure, and as for the comfort of the thing, 

 that is according to taste. It is surely better to 

 have fresh air and exercise, even in wet, than to 

 be spending the whole day in some country inn, 

 yawning over some second-rate novel for the third 

 time, the amusement agreeably diversified by staring 

 out of the window at the interminable rain, by 

 poking a peat-fire, and possibly by indulging in a 



