12 ANGLING REMINISCENCES. 



remarkable man, but by an omission on the part of 

 his contemporaries, and perhaps through his own in- 

 difference, the comments upon his history are exceed- 

 ingly rare. He must, however, we feel inwardly 

 satisfied, besides a worthy angler, have been a great 

 man, although neither wealth nor titles formed part of 

 his acquirements. The inference is drawn by us, we 

 know not from what quarter ; it may be, indeed, that 

 the old arm-chair had some hand in eliciting it. This, 

 notwithstanding, is certain, that great as our ancestor 

 had been, he had met with very uncharitable treatment 

 from the world ; for, although reputedly a voluminous 

 author, we had never the good fortune to stumble upon 

 more than a single tract, DC Fluminibus Scoticis, 

 avowedly of his composition, and only once found we 

 mention of his name in a very old newspaper, as the 

 inventor of a wonderful salmon fly. The insignificance 

 of these discoveries nettled us not a little, but we con- 

 soled ourselves by the recollection, that the worthiest 

 frequently pass without reward, and that the humours 

 of critics are ofttimes lamentably touchy and capricious. 

 Our great-grandfather was still in our eyes a prodigy, 

 obscured by a cloud in its zenith, but revealed on its 

 horizon, ere it set, to a few privileged consecrated 

 gazers. 



Thy second infancy, old man ! was to us a solemn 

 lesson from Nature's volume an instructive me- 

 mento reared up in our presence, to check the exu- 

 berance of our early follies, and bedim the dazzling 



