GRAY BRIG 133 



life, my honest scholar, no life so happy 

 and so pleasant, as the life of a well- 

 governed angler, for when the lawyer 

 is swallowed up with business and the 

 statesman is preventing or contriving 

 plots, then we sit on cowslip banks, hear 

 the birds sing and possess ourselves in 

 as much quietness as these silent silver 

 streams which we now see glide so quiet- 

 ly by us. Indeed, my good scholar, we 

 may say of angling as Dr Boteler said of 

 strawberries/Doubtless God could have 

 made a better berry, but doubtless God 

 never did ' ; and so, if I might be judge, 

 c God never did make a more calm, quiet, 

 innocent recreation than angling." 1 



Or a Green Drake flutters by in the 

 afternoon sun, and the spirit of good 

 Charles Kingsley is with us to invigorate 

 and refresh. We see the wiry figure 

 parson, philosopher, naturalist, angler, 

 and poet with the enthusiasm of a 

 school-boy, realising to the full the ex- 



