ON THE COAST OF ARRAN 35 



evidently no love for angling in salt water. 

 You know what he says in the * Angler's 



Song ' : 



I care not, I, to fish in seas 

 Fresh rivers best my mind do please, 

 Whose sweet calm course I contemplate, 

 And seek in life to imitate. 



I must try the rivers. I must cultivate with 

 more assiduity a disposition of contentedness 

 and patience, and apply myself to the rod, and 

 court the Corrie Burn where it lingers in those 

 deep rock- pools shaded by birch and hazel. It 

 would be worth while to become, even now, an 

 unquestioned angler, if only for the privilege of 

 appropriating and putting into one's mouth 

 that delightful piece of railing which the gen- 

 tle Izaak has included in his first chapter : 

 * There are many men that are by others taken 

 to be serious grave men, which we contemn 

 and pitie ; men of sowre complexions ; mony- 

 getting men, that spend all their time first in 

 getting, and next in anxious care to keep it : 



D 2 



