2 THE ANGLER S PLEASURES. 



we revel when we quit the noise and bustle of the 

 crowded town, to feast upon the mountain breeze ? 

 Or what can be so renovating to the wearied 

 mind as to contemplate Nature's loveliness, with 

 placid thoughts, which gladden and improve the 

 heart, and turn its peaceful reveries in gratitude 

 to Nature's God ? 



Angling is a pastime which has been much and 

 frequently villified and ridiculed. I use the past 

 tense advisedly ; for since so many men, good and 

 great, rich and mighty, not only in worldly, but 

 also in mental lore, have appeared as its advocates, 

 it has long since ceased to be considered a mean, 

 or despicable art. Some few have ventured to 

 pronounce it a childish amusement : but I con- 

 sider that the love of it derives not its existence 

 from juvenile habit alone ; for though it mostly 

 " grows with our growth and strengthens with our 

 strength," and though the old adage " once a 

 chub-hole always a chub-hole," may fairly be read 

 " once an angler, always an angler," oftentimes it 

 will win a tyro of ripened years, or be adopted as 

 the recreation of old age. I need notice no more 

 striking instance of this than the conversion of 

 Sir H. Davy, who handled a^j/-rod, at all events, 

 for the first time when he was Professor of the 

 Royal Institution ; although he did so, under the 

 preceptorship of one who might, perhaps, re- 

 member the use of thread and a bent pin in 



