2 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



As to the commencement of the pursuit, it may be proper to 

 state that with me it began at a very early age, being, like many 

 others, fascinated with the pages of honest Izaak Walton, when 

 little more than nine years old ; as were also ray two brothers, 

 one older and the other younger than myself, and a cousin who 

 resided with us, all of whom, as Washington Irving so wittily 

 remarks in his inimitable Sketch Book, were "bitten with the 

 angling mania," much about the same time ; but as this com- 

 menced during the Christmas holidays, we were obliged, in spite 

 of our ardent wishes to the contrary, to defer our attempts for 

 several tedious weeks, and never did the time creep on so slowly 

 as then. Yet all this while we were by no means idle in the cause, 

 for my younger brother and myself busied ourselves in twisting 

 links of horse-hair for our fishing lines; whilst Tom, my elder 

 brother, who, in consequence of his birthright, was always the 

 most blessed in the way of sixpences, purchased a line with a float 

 all complete to the amount of one of those convenient coins, 

 whilst five more of them were very profitably expended in a hazle 

 rod of three joints, then styled a half a crown rod ; the attempt 

 to fix rings to which afforded something in the shape of amusement 

 to his leisure hours, whilst cousin Dick, with a degree of patience, 

 perseverance, and assiduity that has distinguished him in after life, 

 set to work to spin a line for himself by the tedious process of 

 three plugged quills ; a species of machinery with which all school 

 boys who are brothers of the angle are well acquainted, and which 

 he executed with so masterly a hand as completely to put me 

 out of countenance with my own clumsy manufacture, so that at 

 length I prevailed upon him, in consideration of the sum of three- 

 pence of good and lawful money current in Great Britain, to fa- 

 bricate one for myself also, which, for the consideration aforesaid 

 to him in hand well and truly paid, he accordingly did. As for 

 my younger brother, he never was very particular about the neat- 

 ness of his tackle ; no, not even in after years,when he became some- 

 what of an exquisite in his own proper person, neatness in the turn 

 out of fishing tackle never in fact forming a portion of his worldly 

 ambition; he, therefore was satisfied with the clumsy tackle his 

 own skill, such as it was, enabled him to put together. Thus it 

 was that all the half. pence which had been previously spent at the 

 pastrycook's, or devoted to the more plebeian purchases of Gibral- 

 ter rock, bull's-eyes, or lollipops, were now wholly appropriated 



