A GENERAL SURVEY. 13 



masterly essay (by its editor) appeared in the Neiu 



Quarterly upon trout fishing, and this sentence at once 



challenged my attention : " One apologist will talk of 



wandering amid pleasant scenery, rod in hand. The 



hypocrite ! As if the scenery were the inducement, and 



not the rod, which he affects to speak of so lightly. The 



best of all apologies is Shakespeare's, and yet it is a poor 



one : — 



' The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish 

 Cut, with her golden oars, the silver stream, 

 And greedily devour the treacherous bait.''' 



In a couple of angling books which I had at that time 

 cast upon the waters, I had endeavoured to remind the 

 reader of the countless charms to be found in the lanes 

 and hedgerows through which, on an angling excursion, 

 we pass to the cornfield ; and the objects of interest visible 

 from the footpath amongst the waving grain ; and the 

 meadows " painted with delight " over which we brush 

 through the grass to the river's brink ; to say nothing of the 

 harvest which the eye may gather in the intervals of 

 fishing. Wherefore I began to hold court of justice upon 

 myself, if haply it were true, after all, that we were indeed 

 the hypocrites thus described. The verdict was one of 

 " Not Guilty," and much was I comforted upon taking up 

 the magazine, in fear and trembling as to what would 

 follow, to find the accusing article itself flavoured with a 

 very pretty sprinkling of poetry and sentiment. All in 

 sweet form came the fine summer day, and the rill trickling 

 down the remote hillside " among club rushes and the blue 

 water-grasses, till it reaches the valley, finding its way 

 along, a mere thread, half lost to sight at times beneath 

 the herbage, then stagnating for a space into a little 

 pool," &c. It was my turn now. " The hypocrite ! 



