136 LITERATURE OF SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 



The springing trout, or carp bedecked with gold ; 

 Or does the perch his purpled fins unfold ? 

 Or silver eel that winds through many a maze, 

 Or pike voracious on his kind that preys ? " 



Somerville, who sounded his horn in The Chace at the 

 beginning of the present century, and has somewhat 

 irreverently been called " the poet of the pigskin," has not 

 forgotten angling among his Field Sports ; and Clifford, in 

 his Angler, "a didactic poem," in 1804, has immortalised 

 himself by putting on record his want of appreciation of 

 J. D.'s Secrets. In 18 19, one Thomas Pike (rightly so 

 called " the appropriator ") Lathy distinguished himself 

 by publishing The Angler, the great bulk of which was 

 a mere transcription of Doctor Scott's book just men- 

 tioned, with " heads " and " tails " prefixed and suffixed 

 to the different cantos. He palmed the book off on a 

 confiding bookseller, who suffered in consequence. In 

 the same year an officer of the Royal Navy, T. W. 

 Charleton, left salt water for fresh, and produced a by no 

 means unreadable poem, entitled The Art of Fishing, 

 something in the style of John Dennys, but not nearly so 

 good a production. In the collected poems of Professor 

 Wilson (Christopher North), 1825, so many of which are 

 devoted more or less to angling, we find The Angler s Tent, 

 first published in 18 12, a quotation from which will serve to 

 show the author's style and spirit : — 



" Yes ! dear to us that solitary trade, 

 'Mid vernal peace in peacefulness pursued 

 Through rocky glen, wild moor, and hanging wood. 

 White-flowering meadow, and romantic glade ! 

 The sweetest visions of our boyish years 

 Come to our spirits with a murmuring tone 

 Of running waters ; and one stream appears, 

 Remember'd all — tree, willow, bank, and stone ; 



