PISHING AS A SPORT. 77 



ago many sportsmen were brutal, as indeed some are now ; 

 but these were the product of a brutal age, and were not 

 made brutal by their sports. However much we may 

 smile at the expression " sweetness and light/' there is 

 certainly a great deal more of these commodities now 

 than there was fifty or even twenty-five years ago. 

 " Squire Western " is now an anachronism. Many of the 

 most refined scholars, earnest philanthropists, and cultured 

 gentlemen among us are sportsmen in some line or other, 

 not a few in that of angling. 



It may be true, as Sydney Smith said, that an English 

 country gentleman was assailed directly after breakfast 

 with a desire to " go out and kill something ;" and it 

 may be admitted he is still so assailed; but the spirit in 

 which he " kills " is a sufficient defence, if any were 

 needed, of the " desire." 



We know the kind of man Walton was, and we learn 

 from him the kind of men his contemporaries were, who 

 belonged to the " gentle " army of anglers. There was 

 William Perkins, "a, learned divine, and a pious and 

 painful preacher," of whom Walton says that he 

 " bestowed commendation on angling." I notice, by the 

 way, that of Perkins, Sir John Hawkins, in a note to his 

 edition of Walton (1760), remarks that he had lost the 

 use of his right hand, and that therefore Walton used 

 " extreme caution " in speaking of him as he could " hardly 

 be supposed capable of baiting his hook." It is possible 

 that this was the case ; but I may mention that John 

 Keene, one of the Staines professional fishermen, has long 

 been without one of his arms, and yet, of my personal 

 experience, can shove a punt, fix his ripecks, put a worm 

 or other bait on a hook in the most artistic manner, fish 



