viii DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING 



It has defects, no doubt ; there are sentences in it 

 that one could, perhaps, have remodelled advantage- 

 ously ; some of its humours are, it may be, a little 

 old-fashioned ; certain of its opinions are certainly 

 eighty years old. Yet it is a " big " book. It has 

 much of that spacious freedom which one finds in 

 the great Elizabethans and the author is revealed 

 as no unworthy scion of one of those fine old families 

 which have played a part in history. The Scropes 

 were men who counted in the development of the 

 country, and our author, the last of the line, wrote 

 with the fine gesture of a great gentleman. That, 

 to me, is one of the most striking things about the 

 book, and it gives it a character of its own which is 

 found in comparatively little of our sporting litera- 

 ture. 



Of course, the 'fine gesture is of little value without 

 some definite literary ability, and this Scrope had in 

 full measure. He was evidently a good scholar, 

 with some knowledge of modern as well as ancient 

 tongues, his reading was extensive, he could frame 

 a well-balanced sentence, and, best of all, he had a 

 delightful sense of humour. Some of the scenes in 

 this book, such as the capture and display of Harry 

 Otter's first grilse, will live for ever among the per- 

 manent contributions to English humour. They can 

 pass the final test of constant re-reading. Then, of 

 course, there is the technical interest of the book, 

 which is very great. In some respects that interest is 

 historical. We murmur " Tempora mutantur, nos et 

 mutamur in illis," when we read the chapter on 

 salmon spearing or the injunction that salmon are 



