Jobn Ioun0er 3 6 9 



hard knocks and bitter slights were forgotten. But I 

 am glad to say that John Younger was free from the 

 cant which so many anglers have unctuously repeated ad 

 nauseam from the days of Izaak Walton to our own 

 the cant which claims for angling a moral and intellectual 

 influence over its votaries which no other sport can 

 exercise. Listen, you sickly iterators of the fancies of 

 the London linen-draper, to the words of the manly 

 shoemaker of St. Boswell's. 



" No one who inclines to go a-fishing can reasonably 

 suppose the pursuit any way very particular in point of 

 morality let him allege what he may, we believe the 

 angler foregoes such considerations. We view the 

 matter simply in this way, that every man is so much 

 of a boy (which may often be the best part of his 

 character) that he goes out a-fishing because he had got 

 into an early habit of so going, and finds amusement in 

 it preferable to walking, or even to riding, should he be 

 master of a horse ; or else he pursues it, fain to find 

 recreation in that in which he perceives his neighbour so 

 well pleased, just as he would go a-quoiting, a-cricketing, 

 or a-curling. To talk of following it on a principle of 

 love or admiration of field scenery, is surely either a 

 pretence or an illusion of his own mind ; because every 

 staunch angler may be said to leave his admiration of 

 the picturesque, the beautiful, and romantic in nature, as 

 something to be particularly kept in mind, returned to 

 and enjoyed ' at a more convenient season ' as governor 

 Felix did his taste for the most sublime doctrines of 

 Christianity. I have felt that I could admire the beauti- 

 ful in landscape as much as my neighbours, perhaps any 



VOL. II. 3 



