PREFACE. XI 



deftly on the subject. But I tell you this, Sir 

 Oracle, that although I see a hundred good 

 reasons why I should abandon my design, yet I 

 am resolved to persist: it is my destiny — that is 

 a classical reason. You know that, to the great 

 edification of our youth, the pious -^neas gives 

 no better reason for the hundred rascally and 

 much admired things he was in the habit of 

 executing in his expedition to Latium. 



" I only hope the public will be so good as 

 not to be discerning ; because if they are, I shall 

 have you, my most tender and amiable friend, 

 eternally dinging in my ears, ' There, did not I 

 tell you so ? But you would not be ruled by me, 

 so you must take the consequences.' " 



At the end of this colloquy, and when left 

 alone, I began to reflect a little ; and although at 

 first I could not help thinking my gentleman 

 somewhat hasty, yet I came to the conclusion 

 that he was partly, if not entirety, in the right. 

 So I began to listen a little to reason, and con- 

 tracted my plan, resolving to treat on Salmon 

 Fishing alone, as it is practised in the Tiveed ; 

 for although various authors have written some 

 pages on the sport, yet I am not aware that any 

 one has as yet gone far into the subject, or given 

 any precepts, or treated of the various methods 

 available to the sportsman of killing these 



