18 GENERAL REMARKS. 



and owes the duties of moderation, humanity, pa- 

 tience, and kindness under all circumstances ; that 

 he cannot slaughter or poach ; and that, from his pro- 

 fession, he should ever be a gentleman. He should 

 never forget the words of that most amiable of our 

 fraternity the splendid shot, the skilful angler, the 

 genial companion, and the graceful writer, now long 

 since gathered to his final resting-place who was 

 known to the public under the name of J. Cypress, 

 Jr.: 



" No genuine piscator ever tabernacled at Fire- 

 place or Stump-pond who could not exhibit proofs 

 of great natural delicacy and strength of apprehen- 

 sion I mean of things in general, including fish. 

 But the vis vivida animi, the os magna sonans, the 

 manus mentis, the divine rapture of the seduction 

 of a trout, how few have known the apotheosis ! 

 The creative power of genius can make a feather- 

 fly live, and move, and have being ; and a wisely 

 stricken fish gives up the ghost in transports. That 

 puts me in mind of a story of Ned Locus. Ned 

 swears that he once threw a fly so far and delicately 

 and suspendedly, that just as it was dropping upon 

 the water, after lying a moment in the scarcely 

 moving air as though it knew no law of gravity, 

 it actually took life and wings, and would have 

 flown away but that an old four-pounder, seeing it 

 start, sprang and jumped at it full a foot out of his 

 element, and changed the course of the insect's tra- 

 vel from the upper air to the bottom of his throat. 

 That is one of Ned's, and I do not guarantee it, but 



