13 



more than the amusements pursued in large 

 towns, they make us study nature, and its 

 various features and productions; and that 

 whilst we do so, and are not distracted by 

 streets, marts, shops, palaces all the work of 

 man's hands we are brought more immedi- 

 ately into contact with the beneficent Creator 

 of all things, and that we are more frequently 

 led, with loving and grateful hearts, to exclaim, 

 " God made the country, but man made the 

 town !"* 



* Such a sentiment as the following flows freely from 

 the heart of a fly-fisher, after a day spent in the practice 

 of his art among the romantic rivers and hills of Scotland : 

 " I envy no quality of the mind or intellect in others ; not 

 genius, power, wit, or fancy ; but if I could choose what 

 would be most delightful, and I believe most useful to me, 

 I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other bless- 

 ing ; for it makes life a discipline of goodness ; creates 

 new hopes, when all earthly hopes vanish ; and throws 

 over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most 

 gorgeous of all lights ; awakens life even in death, and 

 from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity ; 

 makes an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder 

 of ascent to paradise ; and far above all combinations of 

 earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of 

 palms and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the secu- 

 rity of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the scep- 

 tic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair !" 



Salmonia, page 136. 



Stephen Oliver, the younger, prettily remarks, " What 

 Pinkerton, with his usual modesty, has said of collecting 

 old coins, 'it is an innocent pursuit, and such as never 

 engaged the attention of a bad man,' belongs more justly 

 to angling there is not a single angler to be found in the 

 Newgate Calendar." 



