THE ROD. 67 



anglers must necessarily be. We only ask of the 

 pupil who honours us by accepting our tuition, to 

 adopt our instructions in toto to allow us to 

 teach him all or nothing profiting as he goes on 

 by what his increasing experience suggests, so long 

 as it is in conformity with the principles which 

 we lay down. When he shall have gone through 

 the book, and applied and mastered its instruc- 

 tions, one by one when he is thus fairly out of 

 his leading-strings, and in a position to set up as 

 an angler on his own account, the matter is very 

 different. He will then be at liberty to adopt 

 what new instructions he may please to study, 

 compare, and practise them if he will. But, we 

 repeat, to do us justice, he must follow implicitly 

 our advice and rules ; and if seeking the assistance 

 of older hands, as we recommend in the selection 

 of the rod and tackle, must listen to nothing con- 

 trary to that which we set down ; else he will not 

 be giving us fair play, and will perhaps find out, 

 to his cost, in the end, that " in the multitude of 

 counsellors" there is not always and in all things 

 " wisdom." 



To some extent out of curiosity, but more espe- 

 cially for the benefit of those who dislike our 

 notions of a rod, and prefer a long and heavy one, 

 we subjoin the opinions of two old writers on the 

 r 2 



