ENTHUSIASM OF ANGLERS. 3 



which those who practise it become so much at- 

 tached. Nor do we think that anglers generally 

 can fairly be accused either of stupidity, or, let us 

 say, patience. They have certainly in their ranks 

 a larger proportion of men of literature and science 

 than can be found among the followers of any 

 other field sport ; 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 pos- 

 sible 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 now- 

 a-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 be- 

 numbed hands and an empty basket, doubts of the 

 individual's sanity naturally suggest themselves, 

 mixed with feelings of pity for the terrible con- 

 sequences 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 



