xxxviii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 



tactics, which had been invented along the velvet 

 margins of quiet English rivulets." 



" For my part, I was always a bungler at all kinds 

 of sport that required either patience or adroitness, 

 and had not angled above half an hour, before I 

 had completely ' satisfied the sentiment' and con- 

 vinced myself of the truth of Izaak Walton's opi- 

 nion, ' that angling is something like poetry — a 

 man must be born to it.' I hooked myself instead 

 of the fish ; tangled mv line in every tree ; lost 

 my bait : broke my rod ; until I gave up the at- 

 tempt in despair, and passed the day under the 

 trees, reading old Izaak ; satisfied that it was his 

 fascinating vein of honest simplicity and rural feel- 

 ing that had bewitched me, and not the passion 

 for angling." 



" But above all, I recollect the ' good honest, 

 wholesome, hungry ' repast, which we made under 

 a beech tree, just by a spring of pure sweet water 

 that stole out of the side of a hill ; and how, when 

 it was over, one of the party read old Izaak Walton's 

 scene with the Milk-maid, while I lay on the grass and 

 built castles in a bright pile of clouds until I fell asleep." 



The remainder of this elegant essay Mr. Irving 

 devotes to the character of an old Cheshire Angler ; 

 he concludes, " I could not refrain from drawing 

 this picture of this worthy ' brother of the angle,' 

 who has made me more than ever in love with the 

 theory, though I fear I shall never be adroit in the 

 practice of his art." 



