than this, that the pleasure which it affords never abates but grows in attractiveness and intensity with every repetition, it would be worthy of cultivation, and should commend itself to all who deem it possible for old age to have some more tangible joy than that afforded by the barren recollections of the distant past.

Nor is it alone during the all too brief period in which he is actually engaged in whipping the rivers and bagging the spoil that the angler derives delight from his art. Weeks before it is practicable to visit "the woods," or proper to even attempt to "entice the finny tribe from their aqueous element," the chronic angler finds exquisite delectation in the needful preparation for his sojourn

Where lakes and rills and rivulets do flow;
The lofty woods, the forests wide and long,

Adorned with leaves, and branches fresh and green,
In whose cool bowers the birds with many a song

Do welcome with their choir the Summer's Queen;
The meadows fair, where Flora's gifts among

Are intermixed, with verdant grass between;
The silver-scaléd fish that softly swim

Within the sweet brook's crystal watery stream.

The recollection of what has been and the anticipation of what is to be; the quiet discourse of men with like tastes, of past successes and of anticipated triumphs; reminiscences of river and lake and forest and camp-fire, make up a series of prospective and retrospective pleasures akin to

those experienced by the old soldier fondling his trusty matchlock and "fighting his battles o'er again."

And unpacking one's kit is like meeting old friends. Every marred fly, every frayed leader, every well-worn tip and line and reel, revives. pleasant memories of river, pool or camp-fire, of "rise," or "strike," or struggle, only less real than the reality itself, for "only itself can be its parallel.” No marvel that apostles and prophets, emperors and kings, philosophers and bishops, soldiers and statesmen, scholars and poets, and the quiet, gentle and contemplative of all ages and of all professions, have found delight in angling, or that they have been made the better and the wiser, and the purer and the happier, by its practice. It brings its devotee into close and intimate communion with nature. It takes him into flowery meads and shady woods; by the side of murmuring brooks, silvery cascades and crystal rivers; through deep ravines, sentineled by cloud-clapped mountains, and into valleys clothed in vernal beauty, and made vocal with rippling waters and the warbling of feathered songsters. It would have been strange indeed if an art which requires such surroundings, and which can only be successfully practised by the exercise of patience and a quiet temper, had not been discovered by Sir Henry

Wotton to be "a rest to the mind, a cheerer of the spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness;" or that what thus ministers medicine to the mind while it invigorates the body, should not prove attractive to all who

Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

To many this prologue may seem as irrelevant as angling seems simple to the uninitiated; but I have been lured on by my theme as I have often been by the shady banks and singing waters beside which I have cast my fly through the long summer day, in sheer forgetfulness of time and distance and all else save the consciousness of supreme enjoyment. An angler is, from necessity, a rambler; and if he wields his pen as he makes his casts, he must needs drop his thoughts as he drops his leader, whenever and however the inspiration of the moment suggests.

CHAPTER II.

ANGLING AND ANGLERS VINDICATED.

We care not who says,
And intends it dispraise,

That an angler to a fool is next neighbor.
Let him prate; what care we;

We're as honest as he,

And so let him take that for his labor!

-[Charles Cotton.

HAT good Sir Izaak Walton said two hundred years ago, of those who scoff at angling as "a heavy, contemptible, dull recreation," is quite as appropriate for their successors of to-day.

"You know, gentlemen, it is an easy thing to scoff at any art or recreation: a little wit, mixed with illnature, confidence and malice, will do it; but though they often venture boldly, yet they are often caught, even in their own trap, according to that of Lucian, the father of the family of scoffers:

'Lucian well skilled in scoffing, this hath writ:
Friend, that's your folly which you think your wit;
This you vent oft, void both of wit and fear,
Meaning another, when yourself you jeer!'

"If to this you add what Solomon says of scoffers, that 'they are an abomination to mankind,' let him that thinks

fit scoff on, and be a scoffer still; but I account them enemies to me and to all that love angling.

"And for you that have heard many grave, serious men pity anglers, let me tell you, sir, that there are many who are taken by others to be serious and grave men, which we contemn and pity,-men that are taken to be grave because nature hath made them of a sour complexion, money-getting men, men that spend all their time first in getting and next in anxious care to keep it; men that are condemned to be rich, and then always busy or discontented; for such poor-rich men, we anglers pity them perfectly, and stand in no need to borrow their thoughts to think ourselves so happy. No, no, sir, we enjoy a contentedness above the reach of such dispositions. ***

"And for our 'simplicity,' if you mean by that a harmlessness, or that simplicity which was usually found in the primitive Christians, who were, as most anglers are, quiet men and followers of peace-men that were so simply wise as not to sell their consciences to buy riches, and with them vexation and a fear to die; if you mean such men as lived in those times when there were fewer lawyers, when men might have had a lordship conveyed to them on a piece of parchment no bigger than your hand, though several sheets will not do it safely in this wiser age, —I say, sir, if you take us anglers to be such simple men as I have spoken of, then myself and those of my profession will be glad to be so understood; but if by simplicity you mean to express a general defect in those that profess the excellent art of angling, I hope in time to disabuse you, and make the contrary appear so evidently, that, if you will have but patience to hear me, I shall remove all the anticipations that discourse, or time, or prejudice, have possessed you against that laudable and ancient art; for I know it is worthy the knowledge and practice of a wise man."