152 THE BORDER ANGLER. 



Gives way, you, now retiring, following now 

 Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage, 

 Till, floating broad upon his breathless side. 

 And to his fate abandoned, to the shore 

 You gaily drag your unresisting prize." 



This is angling in the Jed at Southdean, not in the 

 Thames at Richmond or Twickenham ; and it is plain 

 that the whole of the Seasons receive their colouring 

 from impressions made upon the poet's mind in his 

 "border life. 



The trout of the Jed are of good size, and of a high 

 character from the frying-pan point of view.. The trees 

 that make its banks so picturesque are not so objec- 

 tionable to the fly-fisher who casts up-stream, seeing 

 that he needs less room behind him for the swing of his 

 line, as to the one who casts straight across ; and to 

 the worm-fisher, who does not require to use a long 

 line, they are still less objectionable. But if an angler 

 finds himself in any case interrupted by trees, — mis- 

 taking his distances in casting, failing to perceive some 

 slight projecting branch that intervenes between the 

 point where he wishes his fly to fall, constantly getting 

 fast, trying in vain to get his line down, then giving 

 it a tug that breaks it and renders it necessary for him 

 to construct a new one that is shortly to share the fate 

 of its predecessor, — we most earnestly beseech him to 

 keep his temper. If he gets hot and begins to swear, 

 and in his eager hurry to make up for lost time verifies 

 the maxim that " the more haste the less speed," we 

 advise him to sit down, take out his handkerchief and 

 wipe his face, then to examine the contents of his 

 pocket-pistol, and coolly reflect what is best to be done. 

 If he goes on without doing so,, he will probably en- 



