"J.D."and" The Secrets of Angling" 67 



cumstance will be mentioned in the next 

 edition of that most exquisite and touching 

 Life of our hero by the Laureate,* an 

 immortal monument raised by Genius to 

 Valour." 



Although I venture to think the form 

 in which the Salmonia is cast, that of 

 imaginary conversations, is not so suc- 

 cessful in the hands of Sir Humphry as 

 in those of his acknowledged prototype, 

 Walton, just as Cotton is behind his 

 master in the same style, still it is not 

 certainly freshness of heart that the Sal- 

 monia lacks. What it does lack, it seems 

 tome, is just that "genius" which, as I 

 shall show further on, a great American 

 writer, James Russell Lowell, denies to 

 Walton. He might as well have denied 

 it to Bunyan ; for if The Compleat Angler 

 and The Pilgrim's Progress lack genius, 

 whatever that may be, how can one account 

 for the ever-increasing love of them, as 

 generation after generation of men passes 

 away? 



To return to "J. D." and his Secrets 

 of Angling, probably the best account 

 of it will be found, as I have already 

 noted, in the late Mr. T. Westwood's 



* Southey. In Nelson's letters are to be found 

 frequent references to the fish and fishing at 

 Merton. R. B. M. 



