14 HINTS ON ANGLING. 



pathos of the Odyssey, and at last amused them with the 

 heroic burlesque of the ' Battle of the Frogs and Mice.' 

 Shakspeare was equally great in tragedy, comedy, ro- 

 mance, and broad farce. Ariosto mingled all these toge- 

 ther in his exquisite Orlando Furioso, as did the 

 inimitable Cervantes in his unrivalled Don Quixote. 

 Aristotle was an imaginist and poet, as well as a logi- 

 cian, philosopher, and philologist. Bacon was an essayist 

 and natural philosopher, as well as an annalist and a 

 lawyer. How different, however, is the second class, as 

 we may term it, of greatness. Here we see men arriv- 

 ing at eminence, merely by chalking out and steadily 

 pursuing one undeviating road through life ; by carrying 

 out in all its ramifications one sole idea ; steering conti- 

 nually by one guiding star; acknowledging a soleness 

 of object, a unity of aim, and a singleness of apprehen- 

 sion. Thus we see the single great idea which led to 

 the discovery of America, constituted the whole life of 

 Columbus ; and we know that the plan of his Indian 

 conquests filled the daily thoughts, and conjured up the 

 nightly visions of Alexander the Great. Thus the de- 

 struction of Carthage was the sole policy of Cato; the 

 subversion of the Roman power the very life of Han- 

 nibal. The whole soul of Galileo was evidently bound 

 up in the discovery of the true solar system and uni- 

 versal empire the perpetual dream of Charles the fifth 

 and Napoleon. Thus also the life of Bentham was one 

 long codification, and the invention of the spinning 

 jenny the darling object of the indefatigable Arkwright." 

 The art of angling has been sometimes censured, and 

 indeed condemned by the foolish and over-sensitive, on 

 the ground of its cruelty. Now this is sheer folly and 

 nonsense. That we have now become, as a nation, a 



