SALMON ANGLINa IN IBELAND. 4\i 



Bee if I don't rent what my friend calls " a stand.'* Lucky dogs are 

 the rising generation ; they will skim the cream without the trouble 

 of milking the cow. 



Early to-morrow we go to Toom Bridge, for a few days' fly-fishing, 

 but without the smallest expectation of slaying any of the mighty 

 men of Lough Neagh. Neither do we propose to show this vast 

 water. As well might Mr. Cook undertake to "make up" his happy 

 family of tourists, in the geography, statistics, history, botany, and 

 conchology of the entire MediteiTanean seaboard, between Saturday 

 and Monday, as I to conduct the angler round the coasts of this 

 inland sea in a paper 18 inches by 3. No comprehensive picture 

 can here be painted only " a bit " from the north-north-west 

 comer. A sketch, however, may sometimes give a good notion of 

 the subject, like one of Mrs. Snarley's " hints," or Maurice Ritch's 

 immortal "lines." 



CHAPTER XV. 



In which there is not a word about Salmon Fishing Toom Bridge ^Lough 

 Neagh Antrim Two Days' Trouting Business calls me to Dublin Old 

 Lodgings Tackle Shops The South Wall We arrive at MuUingar Fine 

 Weather not ruinous to Belvidere The Lake District. 



May 8. 

 How are the mighty fallen ! Where is Babylon the Great ? Hiding 

 under a few mounds of earth and sand, of bricks, bitumen, and 

 pottery, till some Layard takes to digging, and sends home a bull or 

 a sphinx, a tea-cup or a tobacco-pipe when the learaed with one 

 voice exclaim, " Wonderful wonderful ! this dead nation knew 

 China and Virginia ecce signum : from this cup they quaffed : from 

 this tube they smoked ; lo ! there is nothing new under the sun." 

 Long ago Tyre laid aside her purple and soft vestments, her jewels 

 and golden wine cups yet she does to dry nets upon ; and Carthage 

 would have been forgotten, had not a love-sick queen required " a 



