young ladies, I am told, is a most accomplished and skilful salmon fisher. And if you require a poetical authority against that of Lord Byron, I mention the philosophical and powerful poet of the lakes, and the author of

"An Orphic tale indeed,

A tale divine, of high and passionate thoughts, To their own music chaunted;"*

who is a lover both of fly fishing and fly fishermen. Gay's poem you know, and his passionate love for the amusement, which was his principal occupation in the summer at Amesbury; and the late excellent John Tobin, author of the Honey Moon, was an ardent angler.

PHYS.-I am satisfied with your poetical authorities.

HAL.-Nay, I can find authorities of all kinds, statesmen, heroes, and philosophers; I can go back to Trajan, who was fond of angling. Nelson was a good fly fisher, and

* The Friend, page 303, by S. T. Coleridge. + I have known a person who fished with him at

as a proof of his passion for it, continued the pursuit even with his left hand. Dr. Paley was ardently attached to this amusement; so much so, that when the Bishop of Durham inquired of him, when one of his most important works would be finished, he said, with great simplicity and good humour, "My Lord, I shall work steadily at it when the fly fishing season is over," as if this were a business of his life. And I am rather reserved in introducing living characters, or I could give a list of the highest names of Britain, belonging to modern times, in science, letters, arts, and arms, who are ornaments of this fraternity, to use the expression borrowed from the freemasonry of our forefathers.

PHYS.-I do not find much difficulty in understanding why warriors, and even statesmen, fishers of men, many of whom I have known particularly fond of hunting and shoot

Merton, in the Wandle. I hope this circumstance will be mentioned in the next edition of that most exquisite and touching Life of our Hero, by the Laureate, an immortal monument raised by Genius to Valour.

ing, should likewise be attached to angling; but I own, I am at a loss to find reasons for a love of this pursuit amongst philosophers and poets.

HAL.-The search after food is an instinct belonging to our nature; and from the savage in his rudest and most primitive state, who destroys a piece of game, or a fish, with a club or spear, to man in the most cultivated state of society, who employs artifice, machinery, and the resources of various other animals, to secure his object, the origin of the pleasure is similar, and its object the same: but that kind of it requiring most art may be said to characterize man in his highest or intellectual state; and the fisher for salmon and trout with the fly employs not only machinery to assist his physical powers, but applies sagacity to conquer difficulties; and the pleasure derived from ingenious resources and devices, as well as from active pursuit, belongs to this amusement. Then as to its philosophical tendency, it is a pursuit of moral discipline, requiring patience, forbearance, and command of temper. As connected

with natural science, it may be vaunted as demanding a knowledge of the habits of a considerable tribe of created beings-fishes, and the animals that they prey upon, and an acquaintance with the signs and tokens of the weather and its changes, the nature of waters, and of the atmosphere. As to its poetical relations, it carries us into the most wild and beautiful scenery of nature; amongst the mountain lakes, and the clear and lovely streams that gush from the higher ranges of elevated hills, or that make their way through the cavities of calcareous strata. How delightful in the early spring, after the dull and tedious time of winter, when the frosts disappear and the sunshine warms the earth and waters, to wander forth by some clear stream, to see the leaf bursting from the purple bud, to scent the odours of the bank perfumed by the violet, and enamelled, as it were, with the primrose and the daisy; to wander upon the fresh turf below the shade of trees, whose bright blossoms are filled with the music of the bee; and on the surface of the waters to view the gaudy flies sparkling like

animated gems in the sunbeams, whilst the bright and beautiful trout is watching them from below; to hear the twittering of the water-birds, who, alarmed at your approach, rapidly hide themselves beneath the flowers and leaves of the water-lily; and as the season advances, to find all these objects changed for others of the same kind, but better and brighter, till the swallow and the trout contend as it were for the gaudy May fly, and till in pursuing your amusement in the calm and balmy evening, you are serenaded by the songs of the cheerful thrush and melodious nightingale, performing the offices of paternal love, in thickets ornamented with the rose and woodbine.

PHYS. All these enjoyments might be obtained without the necessity of torturing and destroying an unfortunate animal, that the true lover of nature would wish to see happy in a scene of loveliness.

HAL.-If all men were Pythagoreans and professed the Brahmin's creed, it would undoubtedly be cruel to destroy any form of animated life; but if fish are to be eaten, I