86 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK : 



testifies, " I envy not him that eats better meat 

 than I do, nor him that is richer, or that wears 

 better clothes than I do ; I envy nobody but him, 

 and him only, that catches more fish than I do." 

 That gudgeon- fishing is an all-absorbing 

 pastime is proved by many stories, the best of 

 all being that told by Daniel, in his "Rural 

 Sports," of an angling vicar, who was engaged 

 to be married to his bishop's daughter. To 

 raise his spirits, we suppose, upon " the fatal 

 morn " he went out gudgeon-fishing, and lingered 

 so long over his sport that, when he at last 

 arrived at the church, it was too late for the 

 ceremony, and the bride contemptuously de- 

 clined to marry a man who so evidently 

 preferred the quiet flow of a gudgeon stream to 

 the more stormy waters of matrimony, or, in 

 other words, " his basket to his bride." No 

 doubt the consciousness of twelve dozen fish in 

 his basket sustained him under such an ordeal. 

 Sir Isaac Newton was not proof against this one 

 " touch of nature," and Bacon, Cecil, Holinshed, 

 and Gay all helped to swell the noble army of 

 gudgeon-fishers. 



