Grayling Fishing. 173 



I think in the whole English language (to me, at least) there is no 

 poem or scrap of poetry which appeals to me with a more profound sense 

 of melancholy than poor Tom Douhleday's "Auld Eisher's Last Wish." 

 One seems to feel every word and every longing so keenly. How goes it ? 



There's joy at merry Thristleyhaugh the new maun hay to win, 

 The busy bees at Todstead Shaw are bringin' honey in ; 



The trouts they loup on ilka stream, the birds on ilka tree, 

 Auld Coquet's side is Coquet still, but there's no place for me. 



Oh ! were my limbs as ance they were to jink across the green, 

 And were my heart as light again as sometime it has been. 



And could my fortunes blink again as erst when youth was sweet. 

 Then Coquet, let what will betide, full soon we twa should meet. 



Or had I but the cushat's wing, where'er I list to flee. 



And wi' a wish might wend my way owre hill an' dale and lea ; 



'Tis there I'd fauld that weary wing, there gaze my latest gaze. 

 Content to see thee ance again, then sleep beside thy braes. 



Ay ! they were charming poems in petto, many of those Newcastle 

 garlands — delicious pictures of Nature, exquisite hits of feeling ! It is 

 strange how all that poetical sentiment seems to have died out of our 

 craft." 



"We get more and more practical," said my old friend; "we want 

 to he always killing. There is no such thing as a contemplative man 

 nowadays. No one contemplates. They would tell you they haven't 

 got time for it. You act upon impulse ; you never contemplate. No one, 

 for example, would sit down in tights at the mouth of a damp-looking 

 cave on the river's hank with a hook, and gaze apparently at futurity, 

 like your friend in Moses Browne, while the otter ran ofE with his fish. 

 We waste no noontide hours for the benefit of our minds as well as 

 our bodies, not we. We must be a-flshing, Sir, whether we be catching 

 or no. It is just the same in shooting ; to make a big bag we make 

 a toil of a pleasure ! " 



" Just so ; and I think that fishing matches have had a good deal 

 to do with this deterioration." 



" I am afraid that the fishing matches are merely an offshoot — a 

 symptom of the deterioration, which has a wider basis than this." 



