Ancient Anglers and Their Literature 3 



forefathers, and who have prided themselves on their power 

 to reduce Oriental imagery to plain terms of every-day life. 

 Jonah's experience with the whale is often cited as an illus- 

 tration to point a moral, and no true angler will dispute 

 this ; but to the angling fraternity, the incident brings home 

 the fact that the essence of angling is faith, and faith is a 

 sort of second cousin to patience. Hence it may be, that 

 Jonah is really the father of the modern fish story, and he 

 stands without rival or peer. 



But passing hastily from the realms of Oriental poetry 

 and the higher criticism, we may note that Shakespeare 

 delights in references to the angler and his catch. In Antony 

 and Cleopatra occurs the basis of a fish story which has 

 been told again and again, and the joke of Cleopatra has 

 been tried many times upon innocent anglers of to-day. It 

 is said that Antony claimed to be a skilful angler, and that 

 Cleopatra hired a diver to dive down and fasten a dried red 

 herring upon his hook and jerk the line. This was carried 

 out to the letter, and when Antony landed the extraordinary 

 fish, Cleopatra laughed. But Antony rallied, and remarked 

 that it was not much of a catch perhaps, but still it had merit, 

 in being the oldest fish ever taken on hook and line. f 



The one classic which stands out clearly in ten thousand 

 or more books of angling, is Izaak Walton's " Compleat 

 Angler," the most perfect combination of wit, nature, phi- 

 losophy and good humor, the best argument in favor of 

 angling as a diversion, ever made. Yet we are told that the 

 inimitable Walton was a pirate ; that he stole from others. 

 This may be true, indeed the lines : 



" Gent. Well overtaken, sir Scholar. You are welcome, 

 gentlemen," is taken boldly and bravely from a work enti- 

 tled " A Treatise of the Nature of God," London, 1599. If 

 this be plagiarism, and it looks like highway robbery or 

 piracy, spiteful critics may make the most of it: the liter- 

 ature of angling needs more of it. In truth, Walton helped 

 himself to everything at hand, as others had done before 



