ling, and least of all to Isaac Walton. He was not "a fool;" but, on the contrary, a sensible and meditative man, and, in the main, an extremely kind-hearted one. He had also a deep and unaffected love for the beauties of external nature, and an eye quick to discriminate them, when they were placed before it-an eye not weakened or jaundiced even by his dwelling in that spring of all mental disease-a large and vicious city. What then shall we say to him?

Let us first look into this celebrated work of his, and see of what it chiefly consists; and then, after having contrasted together the traits of its cruelty with what may by some be considered as its redeeming parts, let us inquire whether these latter do not aggravate the former, instead of extenuating them. It makes us doubt the goodness of our common nature, and look with fear and suspicion on all around useven the best. The reader, who may not have previously thought on this subject, must abstain from accusing or suspecting me of expressing myself extravagantly, till he has seen what I have to lay before him in justification of my feelings. But if, when I shall have done this, he be not ready to confess that it is he, and not I, who has all along been practising a self-deceit, I may safely promise that I will, as the greatest and most appropriate penance that can be inflicted on my folly, turn angler myself.

The reader is to understand, that "The Complete Angler" is written in the form of dialogues, and chiefly consists of the conversations which are supposed to take place between an accomplished angler and his pupil, while they are out together on a fishing excursion. In the course of these dialogues, the author, under the name of Piscator, lays ` before his young friend all the advantages and pleasures attendant on his favourite pursuit, and the rules and remarks necessary for him to attend to, if he would follow it with success.

That I may, as well on the reader's account as my own, get over the unpleasant part of my task as soon as possible, I shall at once place before him a few of the directions which Walton gives relative to live baits, &c. After telling his pupil that, if he cannot easily find a live grasshopper "a black snail, with his belly slit to shew his white, will usually do as well," or " a beetle, with its legs and wings cut off,”— he adds, more in detail, and with reference to the baits for another fish, "First, for your live bait of a fish, a roach or dace is, I think, most tempting, and a perch is longest-lived upon the hook; and having cut off his fin on his back, which may be done without hurting him, you must take your knife, which cannot be too sharp, and betwixt the head and the fin on the back, cut or make an incision, or such a scar as you may put the arming wire of your hook into it, with as little bruising or hurting the fish as art and diligence will enable you to do; and so carrying your arming wire along his back, unto or near the tail of your fish, betwixt the skin and the body of it, draw out that wire or arming of your hook at another scar near his tail: then tie him about it with thread, but no harder than of necessity, to prevent hurting the fish ; and the better to avoid hurting the fish, some have a kind of probe to open the way, for the more easy entrance and passage of your wire or arming."-Again, of frogs-" And thus use your frog, that he may continue long alive. Put your hook into his mouth, which you may easily do from the middle of April till August, and then the frog's mouth grows up, and he continues so for at least six months without

eating, but is sustained, none but He whose name is Wonderful knows how: I say, put your hook, I mean the arming wire, through his mouth, and out at his gills, and then, with a fine needle and silk, sew the upper part of his leg with only one stitch to the arming wire of your hook, or tie the frog's leg, above the upper joint, to the armed wire; and, in so doing, use him as though you loved him, that is, harm him as little as you may possibly"-(why-does the reader think?from pity of his sufferings?—No, but) "that he may live the longer!" -Once more. "These live baits may make sport, being tied about the body or wings of a goose or duck, and she chased over a pond: and the like may be done with turning three or four live baits thus fastened to bladders, or boughs, or bottles of hay or flags, to swim down a river, whilst you walk quietly on the shore, and are still in expectation of sport!" Is the reader satisfied? or does he desire a few more morsels in the following taste? "Take a carp, alive if possible, scour him, and rub him clean with salt and water; then open him, and put him with his blood and his liver, &c." Is it conceivable that these atrocities can proceed from the really kind, simple-hearted, and benevolent Isaac Walton ?-so sincere a lover of the calm delights of the country-so happy a wanderer "by hedge-row elms, on hillocks green"-so enraptured a listener to the nightingale's song or the cuckoo's voice-in short, with altogether so pure a taste, and so unaffected a feeling for all the best sources of mental pleasure? How strangely do the foregoing details appear in contrast with the following passage. "How do the blackbird and throssel, with their melodious voices, bid welcome to the cheerful spring, and in their fixed months warble forth such ditties as no art of instrument can reach to!-Nay, the smaller birds also do the like in their particular seasons, as, namely, the laverock, the tit-lark, the little linnet, and the honest robin, that loves mankind both living and dead. But the nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet loud music out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make mankind to think that miracles are not ceased. He that at midnight, when the very labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted above earth, and say, Lord, what music hast thou provided for the saints in heaven, when thou affordest bad men such music on earth!" Again:- "When I would beget content, and increase confidence in the power and wisdom and providence of God, I will walk the meadows by some gliding stream, and there contemplate the lilies that take no care, and those very many other various little living creatures, that are not only created but fed, man knows not how, by the goodness of the God of Nature, and therefore trust in him. This is my purpose; and so let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord." This is his purpose, he says; and in pursuance of it he forthwith impales upon a barbed hook one of these "little living creatures" that are "created and fed by the goodness of the God of Nature"-to be swallowed by another of them, as a means of draging the latter out of the "gliding stream," in which, according to Milton's own opinion, the "goodness of God" had placed it and all purely and avowedly for the sport's sake! "And so," he concludes, "let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord,”—including the frog

that has just been sewed to his hook by the leg, with the wire run through his mouth and out at his gills"-and the fish that has thus been enticed to "gorge" the said hook and wire, and has had them torn up from out his quivering vitals, and is put on one side to die in lingering torments! Surely, there never was, or will be, such another example of pure and heartfelt kindliness and piety, united to such a heart-sickening and selfish want of feeling and consistency-so sincerely delighted a sense of the beauty and happiness that are every where scattered about us, joined to so callous a habit of wilfully destroying that beauty and happiness for pure sport! For my part, I could more easily solve the riddle of the sphinx, than give a rational and satisfactory explanation of the following short passage, with which this most singular and unaccountable book closes. The pupil, in return for the instructions that Walton has been giving him about "live baits," &c. calls for "the blessing of Peter's master" upon his master; and this latter adds, " And upon all that are lovers of virtue, and dare trust in his Providence, and be quiet, and go an angling."

However much I may wish to engender in the reader a hatred for this execrable" sport," I would willingly leave him impressed with the same respect and affection that I myself feel towards the honest Isaac Walton. I shall, therefore, close this slight notice with a few specimens of his exquisite naïveté, simplicity, and enthusiasm ;-all of which would be perfectly delightful, if they were not worse than cast away on such a subject. I have said that he is unaffectedly kindhearted. He is so much so, that he cannot bring himself to hate any thing-not even the worst things, except otters. But these he abuses in set terms, calling them "villainous vermin," and" base otters;" and he assures us that he "hates them perfectly, because they love fish so well; or rather, because they destroy so much." Next to otters, he dislikes scoffers, because he has heard that they rail at his beloved pursuit. He makes it a point of conscience to dislike them, "because I account them enemies to me, and to all that love virtue and angling!” With him the terms are convertible;-see what he says afterwards to the same effect: "It (angling) will prove like virtue, a reward to itself." Again, he describes his deceased friend, Sir George Hastings, as an excellent angler, and now with God," as if he believed, which he undoubtedly did, that the one is the surest and shortest road to the other. Hear, also, what he says of Dr. Nowel, Dean of St. Paul's: "And the good old man, though he was very learned, yet knowing that God leads us not to heaven by many nor by hard questions, like an honest angler,"-did what, does the reader think ?-why," made that good, plain, unperplexed catechism which is printed with our good old service-book!" Describing the same person, he continues-his custom was to spend, besides his fixed hours of prayer, (those hours which by command of the church were enjoined the clergy, and voluntarily dedicated to devotion by many primitive Christians,) I say, besides those hours, this good man was observed to spend a tenth part of his time in angling," which he (Walton) considers as, par excellence, "a recreation that became a churchman." And then he goes on to describe his picture in Brazen Nose college; "in which picture he is drawn leaning on a desk, with his Bible before him, and on the one

hand of him lines, hooks, and other tackling, lying in a round; and on his other hand his angle-rods of several sorts." It is evident from all this, that Walton thought Dr. Nowel, as he was a good angler, could not fail to be a good Christian. Numerous other passages might be pointed out, to show that Walton actually felt, if he did not believe, that there is, in fact, some natural and necessary connexion between angling and virtue. I will refer to one or two more on this point, as their characteristic naïveté is perfectly delightful. After having described, to his pupil, with infinite gusto, the best mode of dressing a pike, he adds, "This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men." Again, speaking of a "brother of the angle," he says he was "an honest man, and a most excellent fly-fisher." With him the two characters never occur separately. Nay, he carries his enthusiasm so far on this point, that he believes men are born to angling, as they are to poetry, and that without a genius for it they cannot succeed; "for angling is somewhat like poetry,-men are to be born so." Finally, he has little doubt that a person thus gifted is equally capable of all other good works. His book contains several beautiful copies of verses; but hear what he says of the most beautiful of them all: "Trust me, scholar, I thank you heartily for these verses: they be choicely good, and doubtless made by a lover of angling." And yet there is not one word in them that would countenance this idea; on the contrary, the few words that do refer to angling, tend to prove directly the opposite.

It is to be remarked, as another curious result of Walton's enthusiasm for angling, that it not only destroyed his excellent natural feelings, but also his good sense and good taste, in all points connected with that subject. He had, generally speaking, an admirable taste for poetry; and yet because Du Bartas (that ideal of the bombastical and mock-heroic) says something about angling and fishes, Walton quotes him with ecstasy, and calls him "the divine Du Bartas ;" and believes and instances ever so many wild and ridiculous stories that he tells about the "chaste mullet," the "constant cantharus," and the "adulterous sargus." Nay, on this subject, he believes and quotes that proverbial liar, Ferdinand Mendez Pinto himself.

I will now close my extract by a short passage which cannot fail to convey to the reader an apt idea of the peculiar style in which the Complete Angler is written: "Piscator-And now, scholar, my direction for fly-fishing is ended with this shower, for it has done raining; and now look about you, and see how pleasantly that meadow looks; nay, and the earth smells as sweetly too. Come, let me tell you what holy Mr. Herbert says of such days and flowers as these; and then we will thank God that we enjoy them, and walk to the river and sit down quietly, and try to catch the other brace of trouts.”

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My music shows you have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season'd timber, never gives,

But when the whole world turns to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

66
AIR, FLY NOT YET."

WHEN eastern skies are tinged with red,
And fairest morn with hasty tread
Upsprings to ope Heaven's golden gate,
And chase the ling'ring stars that wait
To spy the blushing dawn;

While rays from Phœbus' glowing car
Gleam brightly on your casement's bar,
And pour a flood of glorious light
To shame the slothful sons of night,
Oh haste-oh haste

To snatch the fresh and fleeting hour,
Ere noon has sipp'd each dewy flower
That decks the spangled lawn.

Oh shake off slumber's drowsy spell,
In morning's pleasant haunts to dwell;
And haste to join the feather'd throng,
That greet the dawn with choral song,
Or skylark's earlier lay:

With careless footsteps freely rove
O'er sunny plain, or leafy grove,

While new-mown hay its sweets bestowing,

Perfumes the air that's freshly blowing;

Oh haste-oh haste

To meet the bee on busy wing
O'er opening flowerets hovering,
And watch the squirrel's play.

To taste the gifts of earth and air,
That Phoebus' fiercer beam will scare,
On new-born buds of every hue
To trace the glittering drops of dew,
The timid hare to spy,

Who stealing forth, now hopes unseen
To banquet on the humid green,
And oft, the while she fearless grazes,
Admires her leveret's frolic mazes,
Oh haste-oh haste-

Joys like these will never stay,

But melt like summer's mist away,

From day's too piercing eye.

N.