The fly-fisher, therefore, in addition to the 

 encouragement of feeling that he is in 

 pursuit of high game, knows that it is to be 

 found among those scenes, in embellishing 



" POIETES -.This last is, in my opinion, the most poeti- 

 cal object in nature. I will not fail to obey your summons. 

 Pliny has, as well as I recollect, compared a river to hu- 

 man life. I have never read the passage in his works, but 

 I have been a hundred times struck with the analogy, 

 particularly amidst mountain scenery. The river, small 

 and clear in its origin, gushes forth from rocks, falls into 

 deep glens, and wantons and meanders through a wild and 

 picturesque country, nourishing only the uncultivated 

 tree or flower by its dew or spray. In this, its state of 

 infancy and youth, it may be compared to the human 

 mind in which fancy and strength of mind are predomi- 

 nant it is more beautiful than useful. When the dif- 

 ferent rills or torrents join, and descend into the plain, it 

 becomes slow and stately in its motions ; it is applied to 

 move machinery, to irrigate meadows, and to bear upon 

 its bosom the stately barge in this mature state, it is 

 deep, strong, and useful. As it flows on towards the sea, 

 it loses its force and its motion, and at last, as it were, 

 becomes lost and mingled with the mighty abyss of waters. 



" HALIEUS : One might pursue the metaphor still fur- 

 ther, and say, that in its origin, its thundering and foam, 

 when it carries down clay from the bank, and becomes 

 impure, it resembles the youthful mind affected by dan- 

 gerous passions. And the influence of a lake, in calming 

 and clearing the turbid water, may be compared to the 

 effect of reason in more mature life, when the calm, deep, 

 cool, and unimpassioned mind is freed from its fever, its 

 troubles, bubbles, noise, and foam. And, above all, the 

 sources of a river which may be considered as belonging 

 to the atmosphere and its termination in the ocean, may 

 be regarded as imaging the divine origin of the human 

 mind, and its being ultimately returned to, and lost in, 

 the Infinite and Eternal Intelligence from which it origi- 

 nally sprung." Salmonia, page 17. 



